Restricting access to employment as a human rights violation: a case study of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon

Abstract

ABSTRACT Palestinian refugees in Lebanon face many human rights violations, including heavy restrictions of the right to employment. While the detrimental ramifications of the lack of access to employment for Palestinian refugees have been well documented in policy reports and scholarship, few have assessed Palestinian refugees’ perspectives on this issue. Our study offers insights on Palestinian refugees’ perceptions of restricted employment access, especially as it pertains to their standard of living, emotional and mental well-being, interpretation of the right to work, and integration into Lebanese society. Using a mixed-methods study design with a heavy qualitative component, we assess Palestinian’s perceptions and examine the consequences of work restrictions for the situation of Palestinians in Lebanon. Our results indicate that Palestinian refugees’ restricted access to employment negatively affects their everyday life, with some nuances regarding work inside and outside of refugee camps. Further, unlike pervasive findings in the literature stating that lack of access to high-level occupations negatively impacts refugees, we found that availability of any employment is considered positive by the participants in our study. Further, we found that several of the participants used human rights language in their responses, highlighting that there is awareness of employment as a human right.