The countries neighboring the Syrian Arab Republic are the largest refugee host-states. In March 2011, the Syrian Crisis erupted and the major spillover was a 5.6 million influx of displaced Syrians to the Middle East and North Africa region. Given the juxtaposition of these neighboring nations to the inflicted country, they absorbed large numbers of refugees. UNHCR figures by May 2018 show 982,012 Syrian refugees registered in Lebanon, 3.4 million in Turkey, almost 653,000 in Jordan, 247,000 in Iraq, and approximately 127,000 in Egypt.
Lebanon currently hosts the highest per-capita population of refugees in the world. Lebanon emerged as one of the two key transit hubs for refugee-flows, after Turkey, owing to the closeness of culture, Lebanon’s geographic proximity, as well as the humanitarian “open border” policy adopted by the national government from 2011-14. By 2015, one in every four individuals in Lebanon was a Syrian refugee as per the ILO (2015) and the UNHCR (2015). The World Bank and national officials estimate the total refugee population hit at least 1.5 million by 2017, including nonregistered Syrians and more than 40,000 Palestinians from Syria. Today, “1 person out of 3 in Lebanon is a displaced Syrian” and this reality profoundly impacts the Lebanese labour market.