‘I WANT A SAFE PLACE’ REFUGEE WOMEN FROM SYRIA UPROOTED AND UNPROTECTED IN LEBANON Amnesty International is a global movement of more than 7 million people who campaign for a world where human rights are enjoyed by all. Our vision is for every person to enjoy all the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights standards. We are independent of any government, political ideology, economic interest or religion and are funded mainly by our membership and public donations. © Amnesty International February 2016 Except where otherwise noted, content in this document is licensed under a Creative Commons Cover photo: A woman walks through a poor neighbourhood of Beirut with a high concentration of (attribution, non-commercial, no derivatives, international 4.0) licence. refugees from Syria, July 2013. 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First published in 2016 by Amnesty International Ltd Peter Benenson House, 1 Easton Street London WC1X 0DW, UK Index: MDE 18/3210/2016 Original language: English amnesty.org CONTENTS Executive summary .......................................................................................................5 Methodology .................................................................................................................9 Refugees from Syria in Lebanon ...................................................................................11 The refugee crisis in numbers ...................................................................................11 Refugee women who head their households ................................................................13 Lack of resettlement places ......................................................................................15 Resettlement of refugee women .............................................................................16 The Lebanese context ..............................................................................................17 Political pressures and disagreements ....................................................................17 Increasing hostility towards refugees ......................................................................18 Additional difficulties faced by Palestinian refugees in Lebanon ................................ 20 Loss, struggle and determination ............................................................................21 Relevant international human rights law and standards ................................................22 The right to non-discrimination ..............................................................................23 Barriers to regular status for refugees in Lebanon ...........................................................25 Increasing restrictions ..............................................................................................25 Lack of valid residence permits .................................................................................25 The impact of an invalid residence permit ..................................................................26 The struggle to survive ................................................................................................. 29 Inadequate support for refugees ................................................................................29 Unwanted dependency ..........................................................................................32 Exploitation in employment ......................................................................................33 Inadequate housing ................................................................................................. 36 Unaffordable rent and poor living conditions ........................................................... 36 Insecure tenure and threats of evictions ................................................................. 39 Economic, social and cultural rights .......................................................................... 42 Obligations on Lebanon to request and utilise international support .......................... 43 Obligations on the international community to provide assistance ............................. 44 Sexual harassment and risks of exploitation................................................................... 45 Sexual harassment and risks of violence in public spaces ............................................ 45 Offers of ‘help’ come with unwelcome conditions........................................................ 47 ‘Help’ conditional on marriage ............................................................................... 50 Impact of harassment and fears of harassment on women ........................................... 51 Inability to seek redress ........................................................................................... 52 Women’s rights ....................................................................................................... 54 Conclusion and recommendations ................................................................................ 56 ‘I want a safe place’ 5 Refugee women from Syria uprooted and unprotected in Lebanon EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Syrian refugee women and Palestinian refugee women from Syria face risks of serious human rights violations and abuses in Lebanon, including gender-based violence and exploitation. Those who are heads of their households are at particular risk. Over four million people have fled Syria since the start of the crisis in 2011 with more than 1 million fleeing to Lebanon. This means that about 25% of the country’s population are refugees from Syria and Lebanon has more refugees per capita than any other country in the world. Of the 1.06 million Syrian refugees in Lebanon at the end of 2015, 53% are children. Women over 18 years of age make up almost 26% of the refugee population and 21% are men over 18. Lebanon also hosts over 44,000 Palestinian refugees from Syria. One fifth of Syrian refugee households in Lebanon are headed by women. For Palestinian refugees from Syria, women head almost one third of households. Some refugee women who are heads of their household in Lebanon are widows, some are divorced and some have husbands who have either stayed in Syria or have sought asylum in other countries. Others have husbands who are missing, forcibly disappeared or detained in Syria. Amnesty International carried out research in Lebanon from 15 to 26 June 2015 and from 30 September to 16 October 2015. The organization met with 77 refugee women (65 Syrian women and 12 Palestinian refugee women from Syria). The organization also held meetings with UN agencies, lawyers and international and national NGOs and wrote to the government requesting its response to some of the findings. Amnesty International has changed all names of refugee women to protect their identity. At the start of the crisis in Syria, Lebanon, to its credit, largely operated an “open border” policy, allowing refugees to enter the country. This has now changed. In January 2015 the government introduced onerous new criteria for refugees to renew their residence permits. The UN reported that 61% of Syrian refugee households had invalid residence permits in July 2015 and 86% of Palestinians refugees from Syria had invalid permits in March 2015. Without a valid residency permit, refugees from Syria are considered to be in breach of Lebanese law. This exposes them to the risk of a range of human rights violations, including arbitrary arrest, detention and deportation, inability to seek redress from the authorities if they are a victim of crime due to fear of arrest, limitations on movement, inability to register births and marriages and difficulties in accessing services such as education or health because of fear of crossing checkpoints. Such fear of checkpoints was common among refugee women interviewed by Amnesty International. A Syrian woman, “Mouna”, who lives in the Bekaa Valley, said: “Having a valid permit would give us higher morale and we would feel more psychologically comfortable in moving around. We would feel like any other residents of the country. I wouldn’t be afraid of checkpoints.” Refugee women struggle to meet the high cost of living in Lebanon and, in particular, to find sufficient money to buy food and to pay rent for their accommodation. The UN-led humanitarian response is grossly underfunded. In response to the shortage of funds, the UN Index: MDE 18/3210/2016 Amnesty International February 2016 6 ‘I want a safe place’ Refugee women from Syria uprooted and unprotected in Lebanon has cut the numbers of refugees receiving its support and the amount of assistance provided to refugees. It estimated in September 2015 that 70% of Syrian refugee families were living below the Lebanese national poverty line of US$3.84 per person per day. About one quarter of refugee women interviewed by Amnesty International had had their monthly financial support for food from the UN stopped in the past year. Those still receiving the payment had seen the amount reduce substantially. This caused them increased financial difficulties. Refugee women who were working or who had tried to find a job reported underpayment