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To establish social protection floors and gradually extend coverage, domestic resources should be mobilized. Providing basic social protection is affordable. This amounts to 4. At the time of the visit, Lebanon had started discussions at the technical level with the International Monetary Fund, with a view to obtaining a Letter of Intent and to start formal negotiations for a bailout of the country.

In March , under the caretaking Diab government, a Financial Recovery Plan had been prepared, but it failed to gain approval of the Parliament, and there was no agreement as to the estimated losses from the banking sector since the foreign exchange crisis started to affect the country in This is the only equitable solution, and it is the only one that is likely to attract support within the population.

Yet, relying on donors' money to provide minimal social protection in the form of cash transfers, as done currently, is not sufficient to meet social needs; nor is it sustainable. The introduction of progressive taxation is needed. Lebanon is one of the most unequal countries in the world, with a Gini coefficient of Yet, the taxation system remains highly regressive. Lebanon was ranked th of governments worldwide on the progressive taxation pillars.

The country has no inheritance tax, nor does it have a wealth tax. It was last updated in It should be increased as soon as possible. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights notes that the minimum wage "should be fixed with reference to the requirements of a decent living, and applied consistently" 71 , and the Minimum Wage Fixing Recommendation No.

To this end a review might be carried out of minimum wage rates in relation to the cost of living and other economic conditions either at regular intervals or whenever such a review is considered appropriate in the light of variations in a cost-of-living index.

The Special Rapporteur welcomes the pledge by the Minister of Labour to address this issue, within the framework of the tripartite Index Committee.

Access to electricity is the fifth major and immediate challenge. Two aspects of this reform are particularly relevant to poverty. The first concerns the unbundling of EdL. The process, established already in , divided the sector and opened it to private participation, ultimately allowing for its complete privatization. Unless proper regulation is adopted, such privatization may have detrimental impacts on low-income groups in particular: as noted by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, private providers should be subject to strict regulations that impose on them so-called public service obligations, to ensure that the enjoyment of rights set out in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights -- including the right to an adequate housing 76 -- are not made conditional on the ability to pay.

Because EdL currently provides electricity at very low and highly subsidized prices, higher electricity tariffs have been announced by the Ministry. This will undoubtedly have negative distribution effects on lower income households, since utility prices are the same for all income groups. This was answered by a view that the new tariffs would be lower than the exorbitantly high cost of private generators today and, therefore, specific provisions for low income households would not be needed.

This response is inadequate for the level of extreme hardship that the population is facing. Although generators have certainly proliferated in recent years, people who experience deep poverty do not have access to a generator, rendering the comparison meaningless in their lives.

A clear strategy for how measures will be introduced to protect low-income earners is paramount, whether in the form of social tariffs or otherwise. The Minister of Energy and Water confirmed that the ERA would be preserved in the amended Law , but according to the information provided the ERA would only be established once the private sector is involved, in one year's time.

However, one of the purposes of an independent ERA should be precisely to oversee contracts and concessions to the private sector. ERA members must be independent free from conflicts of interest, independent from political authorities including the Ministry itself, and with a foreseeable budget , accountable, and transparent.

The Special Rapporteur reiterates his gratitude towards the Government of Lebanon for facilitating his visit to the country. He puts forward the following preliminary recommendations:.

Stateless persons in Lebanon should be allowed to register and to have their children registered, in order to ensure access to education and to formal employment. The Personal Status Law should be amended to facilitate registration, even beyond the first year following birth.

Access to employment opportunities for both Syrian and Palestinian refugees should be facilitated, in order to reduce the dependency of refugees on humanitarian assistance; to limit the risk of refugees entering informal work thus competing on unfair grounds with Lebanese workers ; to staff sectors, especially the medical profession, which are affected by the emigration of Lebanese nationals; and to facilitate the acquisition of skills and thus the return of refugees, once the conditions will allow for such return.

The kafala system should be abolished for migrant domestic workers, and the revised Standard Unified Contract should be adopted without further delay in order to protect these workers from abuse.

Women's access to employment should be improved, and the gender wage gap should be addressed. The Central Inspection should be strengthened, including foreseeable multi-year funding and unrestricted access to all public administrations, and the National Anti-Corruption Strategy effectively implemented.

In order to ensure Lebanon obtains essential support from the International Monetary Fund, it should present a credible Financial Recovery Plan, based on the 'bail-in' of the losses incurred by the banking system, so that these losses are shouldered by the banks' shareholders and by the largest depositors. In the expansion of the National Poverty Targeting Programme NPTP , the Emergency Social Safety Net ESSN and the ration card, non-take-up by low-income households should be specifically addressed, by establishing safeguards to ensure targeting does not result in exclusion and is not manipulated for political clientelist purposes, and by ensuring that the expansion of online application processes do not lead to the de facto exclusion of people with no internet access or who lack digital literacy.

A National Social Protection Strategy should be adopted, to gradually establish social protection floors financed, as regards the social assistance component, by a progressive taxation system, including a wealth tax. The statutory minimum wage should be increased to levels that correspond to a living wage, taking into account the significant fall in the purchasing power of the Lebanese pound since In the reform of the electricity sector, social tariffication schemes should be considered, in order to ensure that the increase in tariffs and the privatization process will not disproportionately impact low-income earners.

World Bank, Lebanon Economic Monitor. Lebanon Sinking To the Top 3 , Spring , p. The official monthly minimum wage is LBP, In addition, vulnerable Syrian refugee families receive food assistance equivalent to the sum of , LBP per person per month from the World Food Programme, which they can redeem at shops around the country through the common card. At least 27, Syrian refugee children currently engaged in various forms of child labour, according to the VaSyR data.

Ministry of Social Affairs and the United Nations. Dana Abed et al. Human Rights Watch, Unequal and Unprotected, p. Marian Abouzeid et al. Public Health, Aug. Sami Atallah et al. Transparency International, Corruption Perceptions Index. Since September , this cash assistance is provided in US dollars. Federica Bastagli et al. Social protection for older populations Dec , p. ILO, Social justice and growth: The role of the minimum wage, , p. ILO, Minimum wage policy guide, chapter 5, p.

Ali Ahmad et al. Turn on more accessible mode. Turn off more accessible mode. Groups at risk While the impoverishment of the residents in Lebanon is general, some groups are particularly vulnerable, and they have been particularly hard hit by this combination of crises.

The news prompts the Kennishes to allow Regina -- who is experiencing financial difficulties -- Daphne and Daphne's grandmother to live in their guest house. The two polar-opposite families struggle to learn how to live together for the sake of the girls, who try to keep their footing in both the world they know and the new one into which they are thrown. About Episodes.

Description Drama TV This year, Wallace and coworkers analysed the resulting records. According to their count, across and , a total of women died by homicide either while pregnant or within a year of the end of their pregnancy.

Millions of black people affected by racial bias in health-care algorithms. Wallace and others say homicides should be counted, because there is indeed a connection between homicide and pregnancy. The overall rate of maternal mortality in the United States is on the rise. And it is particularly high for a wealthy country.

Contributing factors include inadequate access to health care, staff who are poorly trained for obstetric emergencies, and subpar care given to Black women because of racism in clinical practice. On the basis of years of study, specialists in intimate-partner violence expect women who are already in abusive relationships to be at increased risk of homicide if they become pregnant.

The team found that Black women in the United States who are pregnant or were recently pregnant have up to nearly three-fold higher risk of dying by homicide than those who are not pregnant — the highest increase reported among any racial or ethnic group. The team reported rates only among Black, Hispanic and white women, because the sample sizes for other groups — such as Asian American women or Native American women — were too small to publish.

Black women are similarly at heightened risk of death from obstetric causes. Overall, Black women who are pregnant or were recently pregnant die of pregnancy-related causes 2. What the data say about police brutality and racial bias — and which reforms might work.

Age is also a factor in pregnancy-related homicide, the team found: young women between the ages of 10 and 24 are at higher risk of homicide while pregnant than are those who are older, according to the study.

In a study published in February this year 2 , he and his colleagues showed increased risk of homicide for Black pregnant women, compared with white or Hispanic pregnant women. Sharps says part of the reason that Black women are at higher risk could be that experiences of racism have led them to be more distrustful of law-enforcement agencies and less likely to bring forward complaints about domestic violence.

It could also build public understanding of harms and risks during pregnancy. Wallace, M.