Military Training and Indoctrination of Children In Palestinian Refugees Camp in Lebanon - Research Proposal Example

Lecturer: Due Military Training and indoctrination of children in Palestinian Refugees camp in Lebanon In the past Lebanon government has shown the willingness to abide by some of the set human rights but one major hindrance in the fulfillment of these basic human rights is the fact that the government lacks the capacity and funds that can help improve the legislation in order for the m to enforce the laws and also in addition, be able to report to the United Nation in a proper manner. When it comes to other human right issues in Lebanon like torture/ refugees and asylum seekers/ discrimination in addition to the inequality of women the political will from Lebanon is mainly absent and missing. The Government as an entity has tried to show goodwill in cooperating with various NGOs in order to improve situations in institutions like the prison especially with juveniles and also the disabled persons. The government also passed a law that helped abolish the religion identification on the IDs; this was a major step in helping fight discrimination. Most of the Middle East countries Lebanon included lack a comprehensive institutional and legislative framework that caters for the universal protection of human rights. In the Lebanon, although in the most sections of the legislations is in conformity with the international law the implementation of the aforementioned is lacking whereas in some instance the treaties are yet to be transformed into the national law. One important aspect is that after a period of suspended legislative activities resulted from the internal political stalemates experienced in the country; parliamentary elections were held in 2009 June and no violations that were major were recorded. In the last decades there has been a jeopardized civil and political rights mainly brought about by the internal conflicts and also armed clashed witnessed around the country. Impunity is also widespread in the country consequence of a weak judicial system that has left crimes especially of the political nature to be committed in the recent past with no prosecution in sight. The interference of the executive in the judicial system in addition to the military courts that are unconstitutional are a violation of the international law. Torture in Lebanon has been accounted as being systematic and state officials and members of security organs in the country practice it coupled with legal prohibition and criminalization of torture. When it comes to the wars around the world one of the recurrent wars that has been continuous is the Palestinian war in which thousands of people have been displaced to the neighboring Lebanon. Lebanon itself has experienced numerous and countless war between various factions that the paper will be looking at. A lot of attention has been paid to the war itself and the number of deaths that has been reported in the media but one major factor that seem to have been neglected is the fact that with the number of deaths on the increase there is a gap left behind in which soldiers are less and hence the need to increase the number. This has resulted in many underage children being drafted in the war without their wish as they are school going children. The children especially of the Palestinian Refugee camps around the Lebanon have undergone military training and also have been indoctrinated and as such are participating in wars when they are very young. This research proposal, aims at exploring how the war has affected the children especially in the Palestinian Refugee camp. INTRODUCTION Internally, in the recent past the political violence has been very rampant in Lebanon. In 2007 September a parliamentarian who was very prominent, Antoine Ghanem and six others were killed in a car bomb that was part of a series of political assassination in Beirut and nobody claimed responsibility for the attack1. In another incident in 2007 was the fight between the government troops and the Fatah-al-Islam that was an armed group and they fought in the Nahr-al-Bared refugee camp for more than three months that ended when the army took control of the camp in September, 20072. The war itself around the refugee camp had resulted with more than 300 people including civilians’ dead. This and many other internal wars indicate the volatility of Lebanon as a country and the vulnerability of the country to be on the brink of war. In addition to the political violence there is a great polarization of the Lebanese society that revolves around the political parties that exist in the country. The polarization is mostly divided along the religious and the communal line and it keeps on mounting (Byers 68). The democracy of the country is solely based on the delicate distribution of powers and institutions among the communities in Lebanon. This democracy is mostly very fragile with the cause being the parties keep on shifting their allegiances and in public denouncing one another. Externally, Lebanon has been continuously been drawn into the region’s multiple conflicts. Israel and Hezbollah continue to be a threat to one another and at the same time is a threat to Lebanon especially after the 2006, 33 day war (Norton 92). Syria is also another country that has an influence to the country’s politics of which the Lebanese political parties will acknowledge openly. With the current crisis around Lebanon, the most vulnerable people are the children who are being used in the context of the escalating political violence. Even though statistically Lebanon has been assessed as being on the progression path towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, the vulnerable factions of the Lebanese society like the refugees and the children face discrimination in reference to the quality and the accessibility of basic services and needs. The Palestinians, Sudanese and the Iraqi refugees are the most affected with the poor protection and limited access to the rights. The refuges have been denied the practice of the civil and economic rights within the country. Through the review of various articles that looks at the denial of the children’s’ rights especially one that guarantees them the basic right to education among other needs, this research proposal will be looking at how the children have been used in the Lebanese war, specifically the children drawn fro m the Palestinian Refugee camps and how they have undergone military training and also been indoctrinated. The main questions that will be examined will include the reason for the war that is ongoing in Lebanon and the neighboring countries. The reason why the children are being drafted in the army and what has the government been doing about the underage drafting of the minors who are below the legal age of joining the army. In addition the research will try to look at how the children especially from the Palestinian Refugee Camp have been denied their basic rights. Finally the last question that can be asked is how the children can be better protected in the refugee camps and how the rights can be implemented in the camp and the country as a whole to give the children who are refugees’ rights to basic needs. From the various articles that look at the atrocities being committed in the refugee camps in terms of the child indoctrination and forceful military training the hypothesis is that there are actually scenes of the children being drafted in the army while being minors and also they are being indoctrinated while in the military camps. The main aim of this research is to identify how the children have been made vulnerable during the war in Lebanon especially in the refugee camps that host the Palestinians. The vulnerability of the children is examined on the basis of the military training and the indoctrination the children undergo. The objectives of the research will include the identification of the children’s’ rights that are being violated, also the identification of the various ways that the children are used that goes against the treaties signed that are in place to protect the children. The paper is organized in various sections that are examined in detail. The first section looks at the background of the Lebanon wars and how the children have been affected in various ways. This section will further be split in the various sub sections that looks at the activities that have affected the children in relation to the war and politics. Thereafter, the second section will be examining the research question and objectives and their importance to the research paper. The third section will be the thesis and then the methodology that will discuss on how the research will be one and the data collection. The last section for the paper will be looking at the summary and the conclusion of the research paper. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND Lebanon as a country is a parliamentary democracy containing three branches of the government: the legislative, the executive, and the judicial branches. The political system of Lebanon is based on a power sharing formula where the 18 religious groups that are recognized officially share power on the basis of the equitable representation among the Muslim and Christian population in Lebanon. The three major and leading positions in the government are divided in such a way that the president can be a Maronite Christian, the speaker of the Parliament can be a Shiite Muslim and then the head of the government can be Sunni Muslim. The parliament has one hundred and twenty eight seats which are divided in half among the Muslims and Christians similarly the quotas will be specified in all the posts in the government. The system of power-sharing was re-formulated during the close of the 1975 to 1989 conflicts through the Taef Accord of September 1989. In the accord there was a call of gradual elimination of the confessional system in addition to decentralization of the administration as well as strengthening of the independence of the judiciary among other aspects. In the Lebanese constitution preamble; it states that the country abides by the UN covenants and also pledges to preserve the human rights in accordance to the Universal Declaration of the Human Rights. The constitution also guarantees public liberties and also freedom of expression and religion; furthermore it clearly states that the Lebanese are equal but in practice this has not been the case. From the constitution it states further that the international law is paramount to the national law and as such; the judges can invoke international treaties in their rulings but this is has happened on rare occasions. Lebanon, between 1975 and 1989 had a civil war that involved the religious communities that are found in the country. During the period of the conflict, there was tension between the Muslim and the Christian communities that were exacerbated by the intervention of the regional powers that included Israel, Syria and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). At the beginning of the conflict, Syria invaded the country and also Israel invaded the country in 1978 and 1982 and after that it withdrew and thereafter, declaring a ‘security zone’ in the south. Hezbollah which means Party of God was formed and it was a faction of the Shiite armed political group; it participated in the war from 1982 with the main objective of the group being to end the Israeli invasion in the south of Lebanon (Norton 137). From then onwards the group has maintained a low intensity conflict with Israel and it has emerged as one of the main political parties in the Lebanese parliament. Lebanon as a country has had a history of child soldier use. Militias from all the parties to the conflict used children very extensively during the civil war. In some cases children as young as 12 years were being used by some of the groups participating in the war these groups included some like the Israel backed Christian South Lebanon Army (SLA), and also by Hezbollah and Amal which are Shiite groups3 (Field 54). By 1990, it was estimated that approximately one percent of the children were being involved in the conflict4. After the end of the civil war in Lebanon, the Hezbollah and other Palestinian armed political groups that are found within the Palestinian refugee camps have been constantly using the children in non-combat roles5. Before 2006, the country has been stable trying to maintaining the delicate power balance among the Christian factions, Muslims; Sunni and Shiite Muslims, Druzes and other communities that are found within the country. The system of governance was such that the structures were divided between the various factions in the country in a complex power sharing system6. The events in early 2005 that resulted from the assassination of the former Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, a Sunni Muslim leader of the opposition that was against the Syrian presence in Lebanon was the escalation of the political tensions. According to many sources it was indicated that the Syrian regime and other allies might have been involved in the assassination. Due to the internal and international pressure and from the UN Resolution 1559 the last of the Syrian troops present in Lebanon withdrew around April 2005 and also the Resolution 1559 was of the demand that the disarmament of all the factions that were armed to be immediate but this has not been the case to the present day7. Since the assassination of the former Prime Minister the country had been plunged into polarization with the two parties in the country being on the extreme opposite coalitions. Around July, 2006, the Hezbollah abducted two Israeli soldiers and killed a further eight. as a response, Israeli responded by launching air strikes across Lebanon on various military and civilian targets including houses, roads, bridges and factories. This conflict lasted for a period of 33 days. After the adoption of the Security Council Resolution 1701 a cessation of hostilities between Israel and Lebanon was put into effect. In addition, the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) was enhanced after the 2006 crisis in order to check the cessation of hostilities and also to support the Lebanese armed forces as they are deployed throughout the southern Lebanon8. In May and June of 2007, Fatah al-Islam, a radical group from the Sunni faction was engaged with the Lebanese armed forces. The group has been accused by the government to be having links with the Syrian intelligence and also Al Qaeda furthermore they were accused of bombing two buses in a Christian dominated area just close to Beirut in early 20079. The group itself had its base in the Palestinian refugee camp Nahr al Bared in Northern Lebanon10. Vulnerability of children According to UNICEF, the environment of the domestic political crisis, concerning each and every one community in Lebanon, is swiftly expanding to the social field and touching all facets of life including children’s lives11. Clashes between communities have resulted in street violence and also tensions especially in schools and also tertiary institutions and in more than one occasion, it has resulted in several deaths. In various local sources, they have indicated that the Lebanese children are mostly exposed to an increasing atmosphere of political hatred and polarization of the Lebanese civilization along the community and the religious lines. From the evidence that the Child Protection agencies has it is a clear indication that the environment that the children encounter in terms of confrontation has already had an effect on the children’s behavior, both within their families and also in school. Cases where the students change schools, because they belong to a different community; has been rampant because the students have this morbid fear of being bullied by other members or even being ostracized. The war and children During the 2006 Hezbollah and Israel war had an effect in the essential infrastructure had most of them were destroyed. Civilians were also killed in the war while the internal displacement was estimated to be nearly half a million people of whom they have since returned in their devastated home. The most affected areas were the ones that are mainly controlled by Hezbollah. with quite a huge number of ordinance left by the Israeli, it has proven to be a particularly difficult to make any movement with the unexploded ones being close to one million cluster bombs in various strike locations. Use of children by the Lebanese army This happens mostly with the political parties and armed groups in Lebanon. Some of the children in Lebanon undergo military training courtesy of the youth or scout wings of most of the political parties. Some of the political parties are involved with armed groups examples include Amal, Syrian Nationalist Party and the Hezbollah. The major stumbling block is the secrecy that surrounds these youth wings and their activities; this makes the evaluation of the extent of their involvement with the children very difficult. Before 2001 the Hezbollah was well known to be using children as young as 10 years. In the 2006 armed conflict there was no record incident of the use of under 18s for the Hezbollah although there were reports that military training was being provided to the children associated with the Hezbollah through al-Mahdi brigade which was a social group that comprised of mainly children between the age of 15 to 24 years. A point to note is that Hezbollah has made a contribution that is geared towards restoring the livelihood of the families that were affected by the 2006 armed conflict and in addition it has helped with thousands of the children pursuing education12. Hezbollah however, does not have a stated child protection policy the same can be said about other armed groups like Amal, Fatah al-Islam and the various Palestinian factions do not have any stated child protection policy that ought to come in handy during the war or conflicts. Palestinian children in Lebanon Approximately 400,000 Palestine refugees have been registered with the United Nations Works and Relief Agency (UNRWA) in Lebanon. Not all of the registered voters are in Lebanon instead; some of the 50 percent live within the boundaries of the 12 official refugee camps in the country while the rest are living in unofficial or informal settlements that are scattered around Lebanon13. According to the UNRWA approximately 29 percent of the registered Palestine refugees through the UNRWA basic services are under the age of 18. The Palestinian children in Lebanon live under extreme poverty with the camps being overcrowded and there is no space for leisure or even recreation. According to Horowitz (233), the educational level that the Palestinian refugee children get is very poor and a good percentage of the children drop out from school mainly due to lack of resources to continue to higher education14. A lack of vocational training as an alternative for the children is a major hindrance and as such, once they are out of school, the Palestinian children face very limited work opportunities. According to the Ministry of Labor,(Decision 621/1), foreigners in Lebanon mostly have no right to work in approximately 50 type of jobs, trades and independent professions, 32 for other occupations that is comprised of unskilled and manual labor. To get a work the foreigner must have a work permit. These permits are scarcely available to the Palestinian refugees and even they are available then one cannot obtain the Lebanese social security systems. According to the Lebanon ministry, the right to social security benefits is largely banking on ‘reciprocity of treatment’ whereby there ought to be a reciprocal agreement between Lebanon and other states whereby the nationals of both countries are given an opportunity to benefit from the social security in the other country15. Palestinians and Lebanon have not heard of this treaty Factions and security of the Palestinian refugee camp. In the Palestinian refugee camps alone, there are over 19 armed factions with some also being found in the Occupied Palestinian Territory examples include Fatah, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Hamas among others. Some of these factions were created in the Cold War era with full support of different states like Iran, Libya, Syria and also the USSR. A significant number of children are being used by the Palestinian armed factions within the Palestinian refugee camps. During internal clashes among factions, children have been noted to be used by some of these Palestinian factions within the refugee camps, this is mainly to harass and intimidate members of other factions or other groups. After 2006, the clashes that were happening internally increased in some of these refugee camps thus mirroring the factional fighting between Fatah and Hamas in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. With the emergence of the Fatah al-Islam, it castigated the clash between the group and Fatah in Nahr al-Bared camp that is in northern Lebanon in early 2007. In many other reports, there is evidence that military training is currently in session provided by some of the Palestinian faction to minors as young as 10 years. Case in point is one incident in which Palestinian militias linked to Fatah and Asbar al Ansar Islam; a radical Sunni group carried out military training for under 18s in Ain Helweh which is the largest Palestinian refugee training in Lebanon. According to Brooks (18), the usage of the under age children in the camps have been propelled by the fact that the Palestinian factions are rallying themselves with the different political factions in Lebanon with some of the Palestinian factions supporting the coalition government while some of the factions supporting the Hezbollah led coalition. In addition to the loyalty, the proliferation of small arms in and around Palestinian camps inclusive of the schools makes the risk of violence in the camps to be high. RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND OBJECTIVES Research Question This research paper aims at exploring the fundamentals on the children rights especially in refugee camps where they are exploited through indoctrination and underage military training. The question this research paper attempts to raise is: Do children in Palestinian Refugee Camps in Lebanon undergo military training and indoctrination? The research question will be explored on the spheres of how the children’s’ rights in refugee camps especially in Lebanon are being exploited. In addition the refugee camps will also act as the basis of an analysis of how the Palestinian factions have infiltrated the camps and influence the refugees in the camps especially concerning the children and recruitment to the factions to undergo training. The research question will act as an important bridge in the research study by providing the guideline to be used in coming up with a concrete analysis and study of the situation at hand in the camp as it occurs. By giving an in depth evaluation of the crisis in Lebanon, the research question will mirror the population of the refugees in the camps around Lebanon and how the factions within the camps especially the ones holding the Palestinian refugees have influenced the children in terms of their basic human rights. Research Objective The main objective that the research aims is the need to develop and implement the integrated child protection policy with the help of the government and the NGOs. Even though there has been minimal record on the use of under-18s by the Lebanese armed forces or the internal security forces, the Lebanese have not yet put it into priority the strategies that can be used in order to prevent the children from being involved with the armed conflict. The objective of the integrated child protection policy will go a long way in protecting the Palestinian child as such it will encompass the child protection legislation, educational policies, measures set to end discrimination that is based in the religious background, provision of psychosocial support for the children that are affected by the armed conflict; child rights and child protection training for government and military personnel; and any other perspective of child protection. The research objective will establish weather the Higher Council for Child Rights has come up with a comprehensive strategy with which the children are protected in Lebanon. The Higher Council for Child Rights is an agency in the Ministry of Social Affairs that is mostly made up of government representatives, the civil society and the international child protection organizations. THESIS Palestinian Children’s Rights are being violated in the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. Although progress has been made in terms of the Children’s Right implementation in Lebanon, not all children in the Lebanese territory enjoy their rights on equal basis. There have been rampant problems in terms of quality and access to education, health and other social services especially in light of the regional disparities. Several vulnerable groups of children include; refugee and asylum seeking children, children living in the streets, children with disabilities, child workers, and children living in poverty face blanket discrimination in Lebanon. The basic rights of the children are being violated in the Palestinian refugee camps solely without the Lebanese government implementing the laws that would help protect the children. The violation does not necessarily affect the Palestinian children alone as the Lebanese children are also affected. This is very evident in the cases mentioned below: Lebanese children have taken part in wars although in different capacities. There is a strict policy in the Lebanese army and as such only 18 year olds are allowed to join the army or be recruited in the army and as such there has been no evidence on the Lebanese children having taken part as combat soldiers. It is widely assumed that the children have however taken part in different roles in the combat operations ranging from providing logistical support to effective participation. Majority of the Lebanese political parties’ armed factions have been evidenced to practice political indoctrination and train a number of under 18 on arms. Hezbollah has been known to recruit children in the political rallies and the children run an under- 15 brigade called the al-Mahdi Brigades. The children under this group are normally dressed in military fatigues carrying toy rifles. This shows that the Hezbollah uses the youth with full knowledge that they are below the mandatory age for joining the army or any military group. According to the members of Hezbollah, they explain that they have never trained or used the children as soldiers, not even during the Israeli occupation. They further explain that the purpose of using children and displaying the m in military parades is to show the enemy that even if the present warriors are killed during the war then the next generation in this case the children dressed in military fatigues and toy rifles will replace the warriors that have been killed by the enemy. The fact that it is very complex to get a stated child protection policies in these Lebanese political parties, makes it very difficult to conclude that the political parties do not use underage children. Each political party claim to have a child policy that dissuades the members from recruiting the underage children but they have no proof of their children policies. Another critical issue is the secrecy surrounding the political parties in Lebanon. This has made it difficult to get information surrounding the child recruitment and political indoctrination of the children. There is utmost secrecy when the children join this factions and as such the youth wings have sworn to secrecy in the parties and therefore difficult to evaluate the children involvement in the parties and also the extent of the involvement of the children. The group takes advantage of the children by recruiting them to run the different underage brigades and furthermore the children being provided with military fatigues and receiving military training. With this in mind there can be a probability that incase of any fully fledged war then the group is most likely to include the underage children in case the military personnel are very few. The children will at for example 15 years of age be in the brigade and once they are trained enough and also indoctrinated enough it is assumed that some will join the main military faction without the Lebanese government knowing about it. Due to the economic conditions which are very severe coupled with poverty and illiteracy, child labor has been rampant in Lebanon. With child labor comes exploitation of the children and one way that the children are exploited is through labor and also military recruitment and indoctrination. The political parties have been known to entice the children with a promise of getting them education and the education comes as a price which includes the perspective of the children being indoctrinated in the party and also receiving military training. Palestinian Children in the Refugee camps Palestinian children in the refugee camps in Lebanon face a very harsh and tough condition. In the first place the children have difficulty in getting identification documents especially obtaining the Lebanese nationality. The main reason is that the citizenship is transmitted from the father to the child thus it means that children born of Lebanese mothers and refugee fathers will not get identification papers by the virtue of their fathers being refugees. The Palestinian children that are born in Lebanon but not with any identification papers do not take the Lebanese exam. The Lebanese exam (Brevet) will lead to an intermediate education certificate and since the Palestinian without identification papers will not sit for it the prospect of further education is locked and thus their education level as compared to their Lebanese counterparts or Palestinian counterparts with identification documents is lower and this makes them have difficulties in finding a proper job. This is the reason of the high low level of education within the Palestinian refugee children in the refugee camps. The low level of education limits the job opportunities for the children especially if they are still underage. The various factions within the Palestinian refugee camps makes it very easy to recruit the vulnerable children with the promise that they will be getting better education and also job opportunities in the groups that they join. With nearly 20 Palestinian factions in the 12 refugee camps within Lebanon refugee camps, the children are the most susceptible to be used in these factions. The children are recruited since they face difficulties in getting jobs both in the Palestinian territory and also as Lebanese refugees. The factions take this advantage by indoctrinating them and at the same time ensuring they undergo military training hence they can be used as soldiers in the current war that the faction will be fighting. Methodology The research itself will be conducted from various perspectives. With the main emphasis being on how the achievement of the research aims, it will be imperative to look at various ways in which the methodology will be examined and analyzed. The research environment in Lebanon is very risky as there have been cases of violence within the research area of the Palestinian Refugee camps. The research will target the children especially the children who have not yet attained the 18 year legal age of joining the army. The other people who will be relevant in this research will be the accounts of the people who fought in the civil wars and the youths above 18 years; this will be due to the fact that they might have participated in the war when they were below the age of 18. Their accounts will help in establishing whether there had been any cases of military training and indoctrination of the underage children in the civil wars especially from the Palestinian refugee camps. The Palestinian camps are the most relevant area for the research in question since the refugee camps have evidenced various factions that majorly and out rightly use the under age children to participate in the armed conflict. The methods of the data collections will be varied; the media and UN reports will play a great role in analyzing the war that has been experienced in the Lebanon and the Palestinians in the refugee camps. In addition the reports will provide the in depth evaluation of whether there are any evidence of child soldiers in the Palestinian refugee camps. First hand accounts of the inhabitants and refugees in the Palestinian refugee camps will be vital in the research for the establishment of the links between he various factions in the refugee camps and their participation in the conflicts and how the have established a child protection policy or if not how the children are being exploited for the armed conflict purposes. CONCLUSION With the environment around Lebanon’s community experiencing growing resentment; the political indoctrination of most of the youth wings around the country and also in the refugee camps in relation to the political parties, military training, is increasing the potential for the children to be involved in the armed conflict. Besides that, the living conditions of the children in the refugee camps as well as the war affected areas are very harsh. The Palestinian children are discriminated against and this leads to them to drop out of the school and getting involved with armed groups and hence take part in internal violence. With the research proposal, the study will examine how the Lebanese government has put measures to curb the indoctrination of the children especially in the Palestinian refugee camps. The research proposal will also examine the child protection strategies that will be beneficial in the armed conflict areas and how they can be implemented. 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Web. 19 Mar 2013. “Lebanon: Critical issues for children.” UNICEF. 2009. Web. 19 Mar. 2013. “Lebanon: Syrians admit bus bombing.” Al-Jazeera online. 2007. Web. 18 Mar. 2013. “Ministerial Decision No. 621/1.” Ministry of Labor. 1995. Print. Mona Macksoud. Lebanese Children and War. UNICEF Conference on Peace Building and Development of Lebanon. 1990. Print. Norton, Augustus R. Hezbollah: A Short History. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 2009. Internet resource. Victoroff, Jeff. "The Mind of the Terrorist: A REVIEW AND CRITIQUE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACHES." The Journal of Conflict Resolution 49.1 (2005): 3-42. ProQuest. Web. 19 Mar. 2013. Read More