Trafficking in women increase five times in Lebanon

Al Akhbar highlighted today the findings of a study published last April by Euro-Mediterranean Women’s Foundation in collaboration with the League for Lebanese Women’s Rights (LLWR). According to the study, ‘Prostitution and Trafficking in Women in the Eastern Suburbs of Beirut, the total number of women victims of trafficking in Lebanon rose from 19 women in 2015 to around 87 women in 2016, that is by nearly a 500% increase, noting that 94% of them are Syrian nationals. The results have shown that the influx of Syrian refugees and the concentration of the majority of displaced persons in the capital exacerbated this phenomenon. The study also pointed to a new type of trafficking in women under so-called ‘fake marriage’, where traffickers marry  Syrian girls as young as 15 years and sway them into prostitution and begging. Another category spotlighted by the study involved European women who enter Lebanon under permits allowing them to work in night clubs and who are eventually subjected to sexual abuse and sometimes to human trafficking. To recall, the study is based on interviews with various Lebanese associations and on courts and ISF statistics. It focused on the densely populated eastern suburbs of Beirut, namely Al Jadid neighborhood in Sin el Fil, which is the center of interest for workers driven away from other countries ad seeking better economic conditions. (Al Akhbar, May 22, 2018)

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