Lebanon hands out and renews hundreds of thousands of work permits every year to people from Africa, Asia and other Arab countries. But until now, only a handful have been given to the country’s large Palestinian refugee population.
Six months ago, the Lebanese government was internationally applauded for passing legislation granting the Palestinian population the right to work. But real changes remain to be seen.
On Feb. 22, the caretaker labor minister, Boutros Harb, signed a decree on carrying out the August 2010 labor law amendments. Final approval by the Shura Council, the country’s highest court, is now awaited. Meanwhile, questions about the potential effectiveness of the legislation and the employment situation of the refugees linger.
“What we have now is, we have a legal framework, we have a technical framework,” said Nada al-Nashif, the regional director of the International Labor Organization, an agency of the United Nations. “These are logistical parts of the equation. “Now of course you have to overcome lots of mistrust, a lack of confidence, lots of fears imbedded in the system through a rather negative experience over the years, for the Palestinian population especially.”
The Palestinian refugee population, variously estimated at 260,000 to 400,000, has long had a tense relationship with its Lebanese hosts. Palestinian militias exacerbated the country’s civil war, and many Lebanese have feared that broader rights for the refugees could lead to their naturalization, complicating the country’s already delicate sectarian balance of political power. As a result, Palestinians have faced institutionalized and non-institutionalized discrimination while remaining wary and skeptical of their Lebanese counterparts.
Under the labor law amendments about to go into effect, Palestinians will be able to acquire work permits more easily, a change seen as pivotal to easing the historically conflicted relationship.
A December 2010 study released by the American University of Beirut found that only 37 percent of working age Palestinians in Lebanon were employed. The same study — which the university says is the largest socioeconomic survey of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon in the past decade — also shed light on the poverty of their population, showing that Palestinian refugees spent on average just $170 per month.
“It’s not that the Palestinians don’t want to work — it’s that they have become increasingly discouraged,” said Ms. Nashif, the U.N. agency regional director. She was commenting on the legal barriers that until now have cornered most Palestinians, if they work at all, into menial jobs, often in the informal underground economy.
The amendments are the first move to legalize the working status of Palestinians since the first refugees arrived, fleeing the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.
“The whole point of the Palestinians not being able to work here was that you couldn’t work in Palestine as a Lebanese,” Ms. Nashif said. “That’s fine, but they don’t have a country, so it’s a bit moot at this point.”
Apart from the issue of reciprocity, the 62-year delay in establishing work rights for Palestinians has reflected the often uneasy relationship between the refugees and the Lebanese government. More recently, the six-month delay between the passing of the amendments and their implementation has been a result of Lebanon’s ongoing political crisis and an attempt to smooth out some of the details.
But with a solidly established pattern of Palestinians finding employment in the informal sector of the economy, a newly acquired right to get work permits more easily may have limited practical consequences.
“It doesn’t interest the Palestinian worker and it doesn’t interest the employer — because employers are interested in Palestinians because they are a black market,” said Sari Hanafi, an associate professor at the American University of Beirut.
The change, Mr. Hanafi said, “will have a tiny impact.”
Even with the legal reform, Palestinians will continue to be barred from working in syndicated professions, including as medicine, law and engineering.
“Unless the liberal professions are addressed,” Mr. Hanafi said, “this law doesn’t have any impact.”
The inability to work in Lebanon, meanwhile, has also limited migrant work opportunities.
“If we want to apply outside, the first thing they ask for is the experience — and we can’t get the experience because we can’t work,” said Rasha Shehadeh, a 26-year-old Palestinian from a Beirut refugee camp who received a degree in nursing several years ago. “I’m stuck because I can’t work outside, because I don’t have the experience and because I’m Palestinian, so my papers won’t be processed.”
Despite experiencing major shortages as Lebanese nurses are lured by higher wages abroad, nursing remains a syndicated profession in Lebanon and therefore is off limits to Palestinians.
Still, while carrying out reforms may not be a cure-all for the economic hardships facing Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, the action still signals a shift in the way the Lebanese government views the community.
“The symbolism of the decision, when the Parliament passed the amendments in August, should not be underestimated,” said Salvatore Lombardo, the director of Lebanese affairs for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which provides assistance to Palestinian refugees across the region. “This is the first time that we have had a national debate in the Parliament about Palestinians’ rights in Lebanon.”
For Palestinians in Lebanon, work rights, however important, are only one step toward greater freedoms. Many issues — like the right to own land — have yet to be resolved.
“While I fully recognize the importance of these amendments,” Mr. Lombardo said, “more needs to be done in the coming months to improve the conditions for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.”
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