BEIRUT: A nongovernmental organization in Mount Lebanon was closed down on Saturday for presenting an “imminent danger” to children.
The Village of Love and Peace purported to offer protection and accommodation to abandoned children or those at risk from their parents.
Lawyer Diana Assaf claimed on social media that the NGO has committed crimes against Lebanese and Syrian children.
“Sexual harassment was recorded earlier in the NGO, but what has emerged is the crime of human trafficking,” Assaf said in a video clip on her Instagram page. “The director of the NGO deliberately sold a child to a family in return for money and forged hospital documents and other documents, an act that is considered human trafficking in the penal code.”
The NGO cares for several girls, from newborns to 17-year-olds.
A report by Judge Joelle Bou Haidar following initial investigations stated that Norma Saeed, the director of the NGO, “committed the crime of human trafficking by misleading some families into believing that the infants in her care, who were there by court order, could be adopted without resorting to the court by forging their documents with the help of a village headman and one of the hospitals in exchange for monetary payments.”
The report continued: “She used fraudulent maneuvers, pretending to have two infant girls in her care, while she actually handed them over to two unrelated families without the court’s knowledge or any legal justification.
“The NGO director was also aware that two minors in her care had been sexually harassed by a person named Jebran, who encouraged them and other minors to engage in sexual activity and drug use, which resulted in one of the girls falling in love with him.”
It added: “The girl told investigators that she wished to die since he was already married and could not be with her. The director took no action against Jebran and did not inform the relevant court about him, making her complicit in his crime.”
The report also stated that Saeed “took some minors to a nightclub to celebrate her birthday, allowing them to consume alcohol to the point of intoxication. One of them attempted suicide without any known reason.”
It went on to say that Saeed “threatened the minors with imprisonment if they told the court about what was happening in the NGO. She used abusive language and insults against them. She also took some of the girls to her house to spend the night without the court’s permission, in violation of the NGO’s regulations, and forced them to do cleaning work in the house.”
The investigation also raised suspicions regarding “the NGO’s collaboration with fake organizations to obtain donations and financial amounts in order to fulfill its mission.”
This matter is under investigation by judicial authorities “and falls within the framework of combating corruption for which children pay the price.”
The report noted that the NGO failed to provide “the most basic human rights, such as physical, mental, and health safety, as it lacks the minimum cleanliness standards.”
Judge Bou Haidar “has been investigating the NGO for some time. It turns out that the suffering has been going on for three years,” said Assaf.
Bou Haidar arrested the NGO director and her suspected accomplices for human trafficking, while the allegations of sexual harassment against Jebran are still under consideration by the public prosecution, according to Assaf.
Judges across Lebanon have been told to remove all children from care of the NGO as it is a “source of imminent danger” to them. They have been transferred to another organization.
In its application to the Ministry of Interior, the NGO, established in 2020, claimed that its purpose was to “provide shelter and rehabilitation for those at risk, especially those under the age of seven, and to provide everything that contributes to the development and improvement of their physical and mental abilities.”
The case is the latest in a series of scandals related to children in Lebanon in recent weeks, including revelations of abuse at a private nursery, with a manager and an employee being arrested, as well as cases of infants being abandoned on the street.