POSITION PAPER

Delegation: The Lebanese Delegation

Committee: DISEC
Topic: Transnational Gangs
Following internal conflicts in countries of Central America, a great migration of Central
America was held for political and economic asylum. This brought about the origin and
formation of Central American gangs. Gangs are being seen by young people as a method
for shelter or being socially accepted, this is due to important factors such as lack of
education, low income, unemployment, violent environment, dysfunctional families, among
other factors. The efforts by the countries involved with this issue to mitigate these
activities have been ineffective and contrary, have aggravated the situation, even it has
brought the presence of corruption in government. The problem is that gangs are governed
under violent behavior and disturbing social peace, and consequently brings negative
effects to entire nations. The issue is that it is not located in one region but violence is
internationalized at the level of Central and North America, and what is more likely is that
in future criminal activities and membership of these bands begin to expand beyond
borders, reaching other continents and consequently externalities result from these
activities escalate more.
Lebanon lives a time which is surrounded by the issue of international imbalance of their
environment, the Syrian civil war. The most pertinent issue affecting this nation is that
because of the civil war has been a large migration to Lebanon as UNHCR (United Nations
High Commissioner for Refugees) refugees account for about 20% of the population of
Lebanon. Thousands of refugees have brought problems of greater concentration of
population in poor areas, more pressure on health services and education, reduction of
wages by the expansion of labor, shortage of housing and all this has a great cost to the
country. This situation is in many ways similar to the rise of gangs in Central America,
migration and asylum refugees have similar aspects. The problem is not one that can be
formed gangs, but is more probably the arising under these characteristics the formation of
terrorist groups, since it is involved in the necessary conditions for the formation of such
groups, an issue that is trend in this part of Minor Asia. Lebanon's political actions against
the unbalanced situation in its international environment were viewed from a perspective of
the international community as admirable, but it brought tangible problems and can bring
even more serious problems such as terrorism.
The delegation of the country of Lebanon believes that the solution to this problem would
depart from a focus on youth. The support and the creation of activities that keep busy does
not make these are involved in criminal activities, take them away from gang membership
or, in the case of Lebanon, be captured by terrorist groups. The government together with
the international support is an important point, and by government policies should be given
training, recreation and awareness to young people. The governments should implement
these programs at the elementary and high school. To limit the influence and presence of
gangs the government should create special programs to the police, delimiting areas where
gangs have more influence and should stablish a program where police and youth can work
together to reduce the acts of gangs.