Against a backdrop of increasing violence, World
Vision Lebanon and Unicef organized a roundtable last week to focus on improving protection for children in Lebanon.
The event was held as political and military tensions in Lebanon reached
new heights due to fighting between the Lebanese Army and the Fatah al-Islam movement in Naher el-Bared Palestinian refugee camp near Tripoli in the north of Lebanon.
'Although many
organisations cancelled their activities because of the conflict at Naher el-Bared refugee camp, we decided to conduct the seminar because child protection is becoming a major issue in that crisis,'
said advocacy manager Patricio Cuevas. 'World Vision is calling for immediate protection of children caught up in that conflict. They are the innocent victims.'
The roundtable tackled
issues such as child protection in development and emergency situations, violence at home, corporal punishment and emotional humiliation at schools, child combatants and other related matters.
Participants engaged in constructive debate about how organisations can establish high and concrete standards for child protection in Lebanon.
'The roundtable was a useful opportunity to
advocate for child protection within the framework of the Convention on the Rights of the Child,' said Cuevas. 'We emphasised that protection is a fundamental right of every child and that each
organisation must establish and communicate clear and strict policies for taking care of children.'
The panel included participants from international and local non-government
organisations, United Nations agencies and representatives from the business community. The roundtable discussion was chaired by Cuevas and Unicef Child Protection Officer Maha Damaj. Ruba Khoury,
Maya Jonson and Lara Zeitlian participated on the panel on behalf of the World Vision Child Protection Committee.
The roundtable is part of World Vision Lebanon's advocacy initiatives to
raise awareness in Lebanon about the international human rights conventions that World Vision has endorsed and that are the platform for its programmatic intervention.
[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]
