Middle East youth in jeopardy as 38 million rely on humanitarian aid

Wars and falling oil prices cut opportunities for young people in the region

Children in the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan. Getty Images

Children wear face masks sewed by displaced Syrian women at a camp for the internally displaced people near the town of Maaret Misrin in Syria's northwestern Idlib province amid the Covid-19 pandemic crisis. AFP

Children sit in a window of a new housing unit at a newly-constructed cement camp for Syrians displaced by conflict in the village of Niyarah in the rebel-controlled northern countryside of Syria's Aleppo province. AFP

Syrian children play in front of their tent at Zaatari Syrian refugee camp in Mafraq, Jordan. Between January and October, the number of Syrian refugees quadrupled to more than 2 million. EPA

In this photo taken on March 27, 2019, children watch a puppet show performed by a Syrian actor, through a makeshift puppet theatre set up among the rubble of collapsed buildings in the town of Saraqib in northern Idlib province. AFP

In this photo taken on February 20, 2017, a Syrian woman sits with injured children at a hospital following a reported strike by government forces in the rebel-held district of Barzah, on the north-eastern outskirts of the capital Damascus. AFP

In this photo taken on February 27, 2019, young children look at a member of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces after leaving ISIS's last holdout of Baghouz, in Syria's northern Deir Ezzor province. AFP

Palestinian children play near their family's makeshift houses during cold weather in the south of the Khan Younis Refugee Camp in the Gaza Strip, 19 February 2021. EPA

A Palestinian school girl Fajr Hmaid, 13, teaches her neighbours' children an Arabic language lesson as schools are shut due to the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) restrictions, at her family house in Gaza. Reuters

Children peek through the opening of a tent at the Kurdish-run al-Hol camp which holds suspected relatives of ISIS fighters, in the northeastern Syrian Hasakeh governorate. AFP

A decade since the Arab uprisings rocked the Middle East and North Africa, many of the region's youth are in need and at risk, the UN children's agency said.

"After 2011, the lives and futures of children and young people have been put in jeopardy," Ted Chaiban, Unicef director for the Mena region, told AFP.

"This is a combined result of conflict and the fall of oil prices, which has narrowed opportunities for children and young people in the region."

The region has 124 million people aged between 10 and 24 – just over a quarter of the population.

Mr Chaiban said there were 38 million children and adolescents requiring assistance in the Middle East and North Africa – "the highest number of children in need in the world".

The Mena region accounts for half of Unicef's worldwide humanitarian response appeals – "a significant increase since 2011" – owing to political and economic developments, he said.

The region also has the world's highest youth unemployment rates – 25 per cent in the Middle East and 29 per cent in North Africa, Mr Chaiban said.

The jobless rates are higher for young women: 41 per cent in the Middle East and 39 per cent in North Africa.

The World Bank says the region will need to create 300 million new jobs by 2050, according to current demographic trends.

Countries "will need to begin creating 800,000 jobs per month – starting right now – just to keep pace with new workers entering the market", a World Bank official said in January.

From war-ravaged Libya to Syria and Yemen, violence in the region affects thousands of young lives.

Of 28,000 "grave violations" the UN documented against young people worldwide in 2019, almost half took place in just seven countries or territories in the Mena region, Mr Chaiban said.

"This is an exponential increase in comparison with pre-2011 because of the conflicts in the region," he said.

The UN definition of "grave violations" includes the killing, maiming, sexual abuse or abduction of children, as well as their recruitment as child soldiers and denial of humanitarian access.

The worst offences against young people documented in the region rose from more than 8,600 in 2017 to more than 13,100 in 2019.

"This figure is, however, the tip of the iceberg. The actual number of children killed and injured is likely to be much, much higher," said Juliette Touma, Unicef's regional head of communications.

The figures represent only "what the UN was able to verify through a very strict verification process".

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitoring group, says more than 22,000 children were killed in the country's civil war, which broke out a decade ago this month.

The coronavirus pandemic is pilingfurther hardship on children from across the Middle East and North Africa, depriving 40 per cent of their lessons because they lack access to online learning, Unicef said.

"Unicef is calling for schools around the region to reopen using shifts and appropriate safety and health measures," Mr Chaiban said.

There are some glimmers of hope, however. "More children are in school than ever before, more children are receiving their vaccines [against childhood diseases] and more children have access to clean water despite water scarcity," he said.

Mr Chaiban urged efforts "to reform the education sector around the region, to keep children and young people engaged and equip them with the skills necessary to match the demands of the rapidly changing economy, market demands and jobs of the future".

But, he said, "there is a crucial need for a new relationship between governments and young people".

Children and young people must have "venues and space to express themselves, to raise their concerns freely and share their ideas in a constructive manner on issues of poverty, inequality, inequities and improved governance", he said.