- After fleeing the war, girls and women survive in Lebanon working in the field under conditions of exploitation. The camp at the foot of the border where they are is not only their refuge, it is the base of operations of an unregulated system.
It's 8.30 in the morning at the informal settlement Ibn Halabi, just outside Zahle, capital of the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon. Here life takes place with a certain order established after the outbreak of war in the neighboring country, Syria, in 2011. A truck has just arrived carrying a dozen day laborers and another one leaves with about thirty children to collect potatoes. Outside the canvas tents, a group of men take tea peacefully. Some well-dressed little boys, carrying a backpack, go to the school that an international NGO set up a year ago and that protects with a concertina fence. The moment of chaos lasts five minutes, until each one reaches his destiny. Women and teenagers arriving from the camp after the night shift do not have time to rest. Your children or little brothers have been waiting for you for a while. They start cleaning the store, preparing breakfast. The men talk about the crisis situation in Lebanon, between sips and sips of tea.
Just a walk around Bar Elias, a town near the Syrian border, is enough to notice the large number of Syrian refugees who take refuge in the Bekaa Valley waiting for the end of the war in their country. Crowds of stores grouped in informal settlements follow each other, between fields and Lebanese houses. The majority of refugees arrived between 2011 and 2015, so many that there are 343,414 in the area, 37.5% of the total number of registered people, 916,113 according to UNHCR (November 2019 data). However, the Lebanese government estimates that it is a million and a half, which add up to the four and a half million Lebanese living in the area, which represents 25% of the total population in a country whose dimensions are they resemble those of a medium-sized province in Spain.
The vast majority of women had never worked in the rural region they came from, outside Aleppo and Raqqa. It was their husbands who provided sustenance. The children attended school until they reached a certain age. In many cases, the families had land, which is why the day laborers already knew the work in the field when they arrived in Lebanon, but not their children, who had to learn the trade in the exodus, at the rate marked by the foremen They control them.
A shawish (foreman) is responsible for the camp, in this case a Syrian established in Lebanon before the war who rents his land so that his countrymen can rent plots and live in a tent. Thus, Syrian refugees, beyond the aid they receive from the UN, pay rent for the store they inhabit, and the water and electricity they consume. It is also the shawish who is responsible for recruiting women and girls to work in the field, the intermediary between them and the farmers and landowners of the region, the same that moves the day laborers from one place to another and therefore perceives the 25 % of their salary. His brothers control the work women do.
GIRLS AND BOYS
In the truck girls and boys travel with ages from 10 years. Some go with their older sisters and mothers, others alone. Potato harvesting does not require experience, so the shawish assigns the youngest to this work. Upon arrival, the farmer counts the number of workers and at the end checks that they are the same. Then he proceeds to pay the foreman 4.9 euros for each one, which will be reduced to four by discounting his commission. There is no distinction for experience. All, from 8 or 10 years to 60, charge the same.
"There are no contracts here," says a farmer, Isaac Samir, whose family has been growing potatoes for 80 years. '' I call the shawish and ask him for a number of workers. I ask for experienced workforce, but in the end it brings me girls, '' he adds, '' then you have to teach them. ''
If at the beginning of the day the children still want to play, as time goes by and after collecting kilos and kilos of potatoes, the joy decreases. There is no day when there is no tense situation with the foremen, who reprimand the children for being distracted. Apart from this pressure is that of the farmer, the landowner, the family ... The day laborers have them classified in a sort of ranking, from best to worst.
The most privileged work is the collection of zucchini, which is done at night. Although working at very low temperatures, there is no foreman to press here, no landowner to threaten. The time there is limited to seven in the morning, at which time the vegetables will be transferred to the Zahle market.
Among the most feared landowners are those who scream a lot, threaten dismissal as soon as any error occurs, disqualify them from coming from Syria or azuzan for day laborers to leave Lebanon. Some carry guns while watching work. They do not take it out of the belt, but it is visible. The effects that this generates in day laborers are varied. "She always takes it, but she won't use it," says Khadija, a 16-year-old girl who is already a veteran at her age, because she has been working since she was 11. Nawa doesn't think so: use the gun, but if you carry it, it is because you can use it if necessary . It is a way of demonstrating its power. ''
Nawa is an exception within the group, the only single 24-year-old day laborer. On one occasion he asked on behalf of all an increase in the wage, but the request was denied. The reason is the large number of refugee women and children who want to work but cannot. It is this offer that ends up marking the price of the day in this informal market. "We are obligated, we have no choice," says Nawa.
Frustration at not being able to choose is a general feeling. "I would like to work in a vegetable factory," Khadija explains, "I would earn more money, but it is not possible. I have no way to get to it, besides the shawish would tell me: why don't you work in the field? He wouldn't let me. ''
double days to get a salary
Khadija is the oldest of six brothers. In addition to contributing a salary of 215 euros per month in high season working double-time, he is responsible for household chores and caring for his brothers. He who is 10 years old has started work this summer. '' Ali wants to be useful in the family. I can't forbid him from doing it, '' explains Yousef, his father. "He only does it for five hours and the rest of the time he has it free." As of September, he returned to the neighboring settlement school run by an international NGO, but other friends of his do not have that luck and are already working permanently.
According to a recent study published by UNICEF, 28% of the Syrian refugee population working in the countryside in the Bekaa Valley are children under 12, 50% do not exceed 15 years and 70% are below the 18. With the arrival of the refugees, the Lebanese Government enabled a reinforcement system to educate Syrian children, doubling the number of hours, serving children in the afternoon. Even so, the demand is so great that not all registrations can be accepted and, when possible, the fees to be paid may not be acceptable. That is why in many cases international NGOs have enabled schools in settlements, so that children learn to read and write at least.
The situation that these girls and women live is hidden behind a smile and a certain calm. A strange combination of gratitude for feeling safe, for having the opportunity to contribute even a small salary to the family and the awareness of being exploited, which they accept with resignation.
At the end of this report, made thanks to the financing of the DevReporter scholarship and the European Fund Frame, Voice, Report !, the Catalan NGO Alkaria is defining a new social project that aims to improve the working conditions of women and girls of the settlement in which your educational project is developed.
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