“When he returned his clothes were very dirty and I noticed he wasn’t in a good place. I then found money in his pocket. It was 1500LL ($1). He said no one fucked him. When he said that word I became very curious. I wanted to know what had happened. I found blood and some white spots in his underwear.”

She was advised by a local Palestinian NGO to take her son to Doctors Without Borders for medical treatment. She found out he had been prostituted around a group of men, believed to be in their 40s. Since Abdul has not talked about what happened, it is unclear whether he was sought out by a group of men or whether he did it for the money.

Ein el-Helweh Palestinian refugee camp, located in the southern coastal Lebanese city of Saida, is the largest in the country. There are approximately 47,500 registered refugees in the camp, according to Chris Gunness, a United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) spokesman.

It also hosts about 6,500 Palestinian refugees from Syria and an increasing number of Syrian refugees, who, despite having no assistance in the camp, choose to live there because housing options in Lebanon have become scarce or far too expensive.

The lack of income-generating activities in and out of the camp is so dire that many have turned to other means to put food on the table; others are forced.

Psychologist Rewida Ismail works with children and young people in Ein el-Helweh who have been exposed to violence and sexual abuse. As we walked through the camp, she explained that stories of sexual abuse were not uncommon.

“There is harassment between children and children, men and boys and men and small girls. Children as young as 10 are abusing each other. It is not uncommon for an 18-year-old man to abuse a 10-year-old girl or a 40-year-old man to abuse a 10-year-old boy,” she said.

She explained that sexual abuse was increasing as Palestinian refugees from Syria and Syrian refugees continued to flee into the camp, placing more pressure on existing communities. In addition, she said many men struggled with their changed identity after they were no longer seen as breadwinners.

“Men usually ask kids to come to their homes, go to an empty school or out in nature, in a far away place,” she said. “In some cases parents do know, but then many other parents are not aware and the children do not tell them.”

“They are not held to account. There is no justice. There are rarely any serious ramifications. They are not put in jail.”

Ismail said she worked with the perpetrators, as well as victims, to understand why it was happening.

Back in the center, Abdul struts into the room with a beaming smile.

“He will not talk about what happened to him,” Sabeen, who was born in the camp, warned. “We just want to let him forget what happened, so we haven’t talked about it since. I can’t talk about his situation because you know, I am a divorced woman, and people would start to blame me and think it was my fault. We keep the story secret.”