More than 10 percent of households have been forced to make their children find work The survey said that 15 percent of households had stopped their children’s schooling altogether BEIRUT: Soaring numbers of children, some as young as six, are being sent to find work in Lebanon as families struggle to afford even the basics during a spiraling economic crisis, a UN report says. Ninety percent of households do not have enough money to buy essentials even after cutting back on other spending during what is now four years of economic meltdown, said the yearly survey by the UN’s agency for children UNICEF. More than 10 percent of households have been forced to make their children find work, it said, a figure that rises to 25 percent in the country’s population of 1.5 million Syrian refugees. Case studies showed that many children who should be starting primary school are now being forced to work. The survey said that 15 percent of households had stopped their children’s schooling altogether, compared to 10 percent last year, and 52 percent had reduced spending on education, compared to 38 percent the previous year. Edward Bigbeder, the UNICEF representative in Lebanon, said that the economic meltdown was creating an “unbearable and desperate” situation for children. “The complex and worsening crisis … affects their morale, harms their mental health, and threatens to extinguish their hope for a better future,” he said. The report said that economic pressure had also taken its toll on the mental health of parents, which was having a knock-on effect on how they treated their children. Sixty percent reported they had felt an urgent need to shout at their children, and 20 percent felt intense anger that almost led to physical violence in the two weeks before the survey was conducted, UNICEF said. Such conditions “result in severe damage to the mental health of children, with 70 percent of caregivers saying that their children appeared anxious, stressed, and disturbed,” the report said. “Almost half of them said their children appeared extremely sad or frequently felt depressed.” UNICEF also found that 75 percent of households had reduced spending on health care, compared to 60 percent last year. Forty percent had meanwhile been forced to sell assets, double last year’s rate. The organization added that gaps in the “social protection system and limited access to basic services, particularly education and health, make it more difficult for families to cope with the crisis.” It urged the Lebanese government to “accelerate the implementation of the recently developed national social protection strategy, which includes plans to provide social grants to those in need, including the most vulnerable families and those raising children.” UNICEF also urged the government to “invest in education through reforms and national policies to ensure that all children, especially the most vulnerable, have access to comprehensive and high-quality education.” Many of Lebanon’s 200,000 Palestinian refugees were also under immense pressure, said Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA “The despair of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon is indescribable,” he said. “Poverty levels among Palestinian refugees reach 80 percent. “Last month, UNRWA opened 13 vacancies for sanitation workers. We received at least 37,000 applications, including from refugees holding university degrees.”