BEIRUT – A young child, estimated to be under two years old, was rescued from an abandoned garage in Beirut on Friday evening, the Internal Security Forces said in a statement. 

The child was discovered by a group of young men who heard him crying inside the garage on Clemenceau Street. They immediately alerted the Zuqaq al-Blat platoon of the Beirut Police Unit, who responded to the scene.

The child was then taken to the platoon's center, where the paternal grandmother, H.A. (born 1983), arrived and claimed the child as her grandson, A.G. (born 2023).

H.A. stated that the child's father, S.G. (born 2002), had previously been arrested for a drug offense and had taken the child from the mother, D.M. (born 1995), with whom he was divorced and who had custody rights according to a reconciliation contract from the Jaafari Sharia Court.

The child's mother later arrived at the detachment center and confirmed the custody arrangement, stating that she had filed a complaint against her ex-husband for kidnapping the child and not obeying the court order.

The child was ultimately returned to his mother, and the case has been turned over to the Beirut Judicial Detachment for further investigation, with efforts ongoing to locate and arrest the father.

In 2023, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Lebanon said the country has been witnessing a "distressing" surge in various forms of child abuse and child abandonment. The numbers are driven by the financial crisis' impact on families, while the forms of child abuse on the rise include neglect, physical abuse and, notably, sexual abuse.

Meanwhile, activists say religious courts in Lebanon favor chauvinist traditions that serve the interests of men. For instance, Shiite law states that women can have custody of their children up until the age of two for boys and seven for girls.