Research report on the experiences of migrants seeking protection in Lebanon – by Cathrine Brun and Maria Maalouf

he VULNER research project’s objective is to reach a more profound understanding of the experiences of vulnerabilities of migrants applying for asylum and other humanitarian protection statuses, and how they could best be addressed. It therefore makes use of a twofold analysis, which confronts the study of existing legal and bureaucratic norms and practices that seek to assess and address vulnerabilities among migrants seeking protection, with migrants’ own experiences.

In this second report from the Lebanon case study of the VULNER project, the objective is to understand the relationship between experiences of vulnerabilities among displaced populations and the legal and bureaucratic frameworks in place. With the help of insights from Syrian Refugees, Palestinian Refugees from Syria and Palestinian refugees residing in Lebanon we explore how vulnerabilities are constituted and may increase or decrease as a result of the legal and bureaucratic framework they encounter. The report builds directly on the first phase of the project and the first report from Lebanon (El Daif et al. 2021) in seeking to understand the experience of vulnerability by refugees. In the first report, which focused mainly on the legal and bureaucratic framework, we showed that in Lebanon, there is no legal protection for refugees, there is no asylum law and Lebanon considers itself a transit country rather than a host country. As a result, different refugee groups are treated differently: Most Palestinian Refugees residing in Lebanon have legal residency and a work permit to access a limited number of occupations, most of the Syrian refugees and Palestinian refugees from Syria we interviewed did not have legal residency in Lebanon. Yet all displaced populations – regardless of their residency status and despite their protracted residence in the country – officially reside in Lebanon temporarily.

Read the full report here.