FOCUS SOUTH LEBANON

Overall Context

The civil war (1975 – 1990) and the July 2006 war not only had a deeply negative impact on the infrastructure of Lebanon: years of conflict also strongly affected Lebanese society both at the psychological and financial level, leaving the population exposed to trauma and economic hardship. Unemployment and scarce access to good quality health- and educational services negatively influenced an already fragile societal structure: frustration, depression and hopelessness increased the level of aggressiveness, anxiety and violence within families and the population by and large. Although the continuous conflicts forced families to adapt to new circumstances, and requested women to take over more responsibilities than usually expected within the patriarchal family structure, traditional gender roles continued to represent a valid societal organizational pattern, hindering new communication and interaction possibilities. Paired with a highly conflictual outer environment and consequent high exposure to stress, the traditional backbone of society (irrespective of the religious belief) and the humiliation of exclusion from proper employment, education, and health- services, generated a highly dysfunctional society.

Children Exposed

In this context, schools throughout Lebanon, instead of playing a protective and purely educational role, turned even more into catalysts of the difficulties faced by the population.

Especially since the July 2006 war, violence significantly increased in schools, representing, along with financial difficulties of the families, one of the main reasons for high-drop out rates. 

Children generally tend to be hyperactive because of a lack of extra-curricular activities and of safe places where to play and express themselves, and are as well indirectly influenced by the frustration, depression and anxiety their parents are exposed to. 

Mothers are often overwhelmed by their responsibilities in the house and in the educational arena, as their husbands are often away for work, enrolled in the military or not traditionally actively involved in the education of their children. The lack of time and space to reflect and find solutions to their questions and difficulties with their children increases the levels of stress producing depression, anxiety and a sense of hopelessness.

Teacher are generally inadequately educated/ trained, underpaid and forced to work in overcrowded, poorly equipped classrooms.  Moreover, the lack of mobility and exchange between villages exacerbates a sense of oppression and isolation, which contributes to the generation of prejudices and conflicts further increasing the divide and the dismembering of communities. 

The difficult fate of young farmers

Despite the importance of agriculture for the South of Lebanon, production levels remain low compared to the rest of the country. Farmers continue to use outdated techniques, hindering economic development and making it difficult to compete with cheaper imports from modernized countries. The lasting decline of productivity in agriculture results from several problems, some of which are: old technology, lack of training, poor quality products, very little product processing, difficulty in marketing products, low yields and costly materials. Other factors negatively affecting the sector are polluted water, poor rural roads and lack of irrigation networks and storage facilities. 

A large problem facing small farmers is a lack of financing for the purchase of bulbs, fertilizers and pesticides. Scarce access to credit from the formal banking sector forces them to turn to middlemen and agricultural merchants for loans in exchange for a share of harvest yields.

Farmers are under continual burden of debt and their situation has been further aggravated by the outbreak of the July 2006 War, which resulted in huge losses for the agricultural sector: Farmers suffered greatly from the bombardments and the consequent pollution of the area with cluster bombs and other types of mines. Still now the working environment on the fields of the South of Lebanon is highly dangerous: an additional challenge for farmers who already face a difficult financial situation. The interruption of labor supply and poor access to farm fields during and after the conflict made harvesting impossible in many cases, with many farmers losing their crops. The hostilities obstructed the transportation of agricultural products to markets, and the export of those products was made impossible by the closure of borders and the air and sea blockade. For all these reasons, migration to bigger cities or even other countries increased significantly, further disrupting the communities of the South of Lebanon.