RAMALLAH, 29 Oct (JMCC) -
UNRWA Lebanon director Salvatore Lombardo said yesterday in Beirut that Palestinians in
Gaza and Lebanon's twelve refugee camps face similar hardships and squalid living conditions. At the beginning of the World Education Forum, Lombardo said Lebanese limitations on Palestinian employment mean continual disenfranchisement and economic ruin even for the less than three percent of Palestinian refugees with education.
“The situation in Gaza under full Israeli blockade is very difficult,” Lombardo said, “but the situation in Lebanon is far from acceptable.”
Of the 9,000 odd Palestinians – a tiny fraction of Lebanon’s 400,000 plus registered refugees – that graduated from various vocational schools in the last 10 years, only 31 percent found employment in their chosen field. A further 43 percent managed to obtain some kind of employment but 34 percent remain unemployed, a new study conducted by the Consultation and Research Institute has shown.
Those that found work continued to be underpaid, predominantly earning less than $600 a month, with almost 40 percent earning less than the Lebanese minimal wage of $320.
Read more at
The Daily Star...