BEIRUT (PIC)– The Lebanese parliament passed a law on Tuesday allowing the Palestinian refugees to work in all private sectors after their job rights were limited to the most menial professions for decades.
Under this law Lebanon’s refugees will have the right to claim free work permits for employment in the private sector.
They will also be able to claim cover for work-related accidents and retirement indemnities from their own social security fund to which they will pay contributions while working.
The Palestinians’ rights in Lebanon remain well short of the ones enjoyed by Palestinian refugees in Syria Jordan and elsewhere in the region.
Palestinians in Lebanon will still be unable to work in the public sector or in professions such as medicine law or engineering where membership of Lebanese syndicates is compulsory.
They will also continue to be denied access to Lebanese state medical or educational facilities at the pretext that those services are provided to the refugees by the UNRWA which is currently suffering from a severe financing deficit.
Meanwhile dozens of Palestinian refugees rallied in Riyadh Al-Solh square in downtown Beirut to urge the Lebanese parliament to work on granting them their civil rights fully.
Dean of Palestinian engineers in Lebanon Ahmed Abu Jami’a stressed in a speech during the rally the need for removing the big confusion over the Palestinians’ refusal to be resettled in Lebanon and their demands for civil rights.
Abu Jami’a called on the Lebanese parliament to do justice to the Palestinian refugees and grant them all their civil social and humanitarian rights in its Tuesday’s session.
For its part the Hamas Movement hailed the decision taken by the Lebanese parliament over the Palestinian refugees’ employment rights as a positive step.
In a press release on Tuesday the Movement said that this step should be followed by other steps where the Palestinian refugee is still deprived of practicing free professions has no social and health security and is denied the right to own an apartment.
It emphasized that those human rights are necessary for protecting the dignity of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and help confront all displacement and resettlement schemes.
