The Union for the Protection of Juveniles in Lebanon

• The "Union for the Protection of Juveniles in Lebanon," presided over by Mrs. Alice Nakkash, held its annual general assembly in the lecture hall of the Ministry of National Education on January 27, 1956. The meeting was under the patronage of Mrs. Zalfa Chamoun, and it was attended by an elite of men of thought and letters and those concerned with social affairs. His Excellency Mohieddine Nsouli spoke on social work in Lebanon; Mr. Hardy Wickwar, the United Nations expert in social affairs, on a general plan for social services in Lebanon; and Mr. Ibrahim Chemayel on the work of the Union.

Among the aims the Union achieved in 1954 and 1955 was the appointment of women social workers in the various provinces to secure the handling of delinquent juveniles before the juvenile courts and to carry out the social inquiries relating to them. The Union holds it necessary to establish modern reformatories equipped to train juveniles in manual and vocational work, and an observation home to shelter juveniles before their appearance in the court examining their case. Close cooperation is therefore indispensable between the Union and the authorities, above all the Ministry of Social Affairs. The statistics prepared by the Union for 1955 showed that 1,312 delinquent juveniles appeared before the juvenile courts in Lebanon, of whom 1,092 were male and 220 female. Various offenses were attributed to them, chiefly theft, begging, and vagrancy. 173 juveniles were sentenced to be placed in reform institutions, and 12 to be placed in institutions with which the Ministry of Social Affairs has contracted; as for the rest, most were handed over to their families, and against the others no offense was proven.