The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Friday that at least one million children are at risk of physical, psychological, or sexual violence as the crisis in Lebanon intensifies.
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The organization added in a report that “one child out of every two in Lebanon is at risk of physical, psychological or sexual violence, at a time when families are struggling to cope with the worsening crisis in the country.”
And she added, “The number of child abuse cases increased by 44 percent between October 2020 and the same month of 2021, as the numbers indicate that these assaults rose from 3,913 cases to 5,621 cases.”
The organization pointed out that Lebanon “is suffering from the impact of the financial and political turmoil that is plaguing it, in addition to the Corona pandemic, as well as the damage caused by the explosion of the Port of Beirut on August 4, 2020”.
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The explosion killed 219 people, injured about 7,000 others, and damaged large areas of the Lebanese capital, Beirut.
The organization indicated that “about 1.8 million children, or more than 80 percent of children in Lebanon, now suffer from multidimensional poverty, down from about 900,000 children in 2019”.
Two years ago, Lebanon suffered the worst economic crisis in its history, classified by the World Bank as one of the 3 worst economic crises in the world, which led to a financial collapse and a rise in poverty, unemployment, and crime rates.
