"Because We Struggle to Survive": Child Labour among Refugees of the Syrian Conflict

This study provides pertinent first-hand information on the reality facing Syrian children who are working either in their homeland, the neighbouring countries or elsewhere in Europe. Syria’s civil war is the worst humanitarian crisis of our time. Hundreds of thousands of people – adults and children alike – have been killed. Two thirds of all Syrians have lost their homes and their livelihoods. Millions of Syrians have been uprooted from their home communities and forced to flee within their country or to neighbouring countries. The consistent spill-over has drawn global attention not just to the humanitarian crisis facing both local communities and national governments but also to the economic and social strain. The bloodshed wreaked by the different parties continues. The suffering deepens. Approximately half of the Syrian refugees and displaced persons are children and young people who suffer from a double-vulnerability: as children and as migrants or refugees.

Terre des Hommes and partners of the Destination Unknown Campaign support children in Syria, the neighbouring countries, along the transit routes and in the host countries. Terre des Hommes and other leaders of the humanitarian community are urging all the parties to immediately end the attacks on civilians, hospitals and schools and to agree on a ceasefire and embark upon a path to peace. Terre des Hommes is appealing to all the states to which the refugee children are turning to find refuge and reminding them of their duties towards all children. The duties of the states are enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child – a Convention which they have already ratified: a child is a child, regardless of his or her legal status. For one thing is certain: Although children escape the war, they are still not out of harm’s way. This study reports on a strong increase in the economic exploitation of these children. Children are working in agriculture, on the streets, in factories and in tents and other confined spaces which have now become their new homes.