This review was prepared by the Lebanese Union of Physically Disabled Persons, the Youth Association for the Blind, the Lebanese Self-Advocacy Association, the National Association for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the Lebanese Federation for the Deaf, the Palestinian Disability Commission, the Darb al-Wafa Association for the Disabled, the Musawa Association, the Association for the Education of the Deaf, and the Forum for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This review focuses on the Lebanese government’s compliance with its obligations to protect and respect the rights of persons with disabilities. This review presents and analyzes key data related to the rights of persons with disabilities to employment, education, health, and non-discrimination; and the rights of refugees with disabilities.

The policies pursued by the political class in Lebanon have led to an accumulation of civil, popular, and grassroots efforts to reject waste, corruption, the theft of public funds, and the logic of spoils and quotas. Following the events of 2011 and 2015, the streets exploded on October 17, 2019, in a popular revolution that transcended sectarian and regional boundaries. The authorities and sectarian dictatorships attempted to suppress this revolution in various ways. This revolution was accompanied by economic, social, and political suffocation, leading to further marginalization and exclusion of persons with disabilities. Organizations of persons with disabilities have been involved in the movements and activities of this revolution to make their voices heard, on a par with those of other marginalized groups.

While the Universal Periodic Review of Human Rights remains the most important platform for organizations of persons with disabilities in Lebanon, despite Parliament’s failure to ratify the International Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006), which was approved by the Lebanese government in June 2007, political disagreement between the poles of power has deprived persons with disabilities in Lebanon (approximately 10 percent of the population) and their organizations of the monitoring and follow-up mechanisms provided to them by the Convention and its attached Protocol.