SARAFAND/ZAWTAR SHARQIEH, Lebanon: As delegates convene in Beirut to discuss a convention that bans cluster munitions, work to clear the country’s south of these weapons is ongoing, and survivors are still grappling with the life-long effects of their injuries.

Monday marks the opening of the Second Meeting of States Parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions. A total of 109 countries have joined the convention, and 61 – including Lebanon – are “states parties,” meaning they have signed and ratified the convention, which requires countries to declare and destroy stockpiles of cluster munitions, clear contaminated areas, and assist survivors and affected communities.

The Beirut meeting point is notable, as Lebanon is a country that has been severely impacted by cluster bombs over the course of several wars. The smaller bomblets which are ejected from the bombs spread out over a wide area and have been criticized for the risks they pose to civilians during and after conflict. Israel’s use of the weapons in the July 2006 war, which the U.N. puts at four million, helped jump start the convention process in 2007.

Clearance work, which began here shortly after the war’s end, is ongoing. According to the Lebanon Mine Action Center, the army-headed division that is supervising the cleanup, 67 percent of contaminated land has been cleared. They aim to have the country free of cluster munitions by 2016.

Injuries and deaths in Lebanon from cluster bombs are decreasing. Between post-war mid-August and the end of 2011, 183 people were injured and 26 were killed by cluster munitions. In 2007, 82 people died and 13 were killed. This year, the bombs have injured five people and killed one.

Ninety percent of the remaining cluster munitions, says LMAC, are in the country’s south, which was heavily hit in 2006. The Mines Advisory Group, the largest of the humanitarian clearance groups in Lebanon, is busy at work in the south.

Near the village of Zawtar Sharqieh, several MAG members are spread over an area that the municipality has pegged to be a football field. Workers wearing black protective vests and helmets with face shields are trimming vegetation and checking for metal fragments.

This is dangerous and painstaking work, and the workers must be careful not to stumble onto one of the areas, marked by red and white caution tape, where a cluster bomb or fragment has been identified. These munitions are eventually blown up on the spot where they lie.

MAG workers say south Lebanon’s hard and rocky terrain makes clearance especially difficult. In addition to humans, it uses mechanical devices retrofitted for south Lebanon’s environment. These include armored tractors with scoops that can sift through ground and, if necessary, sustain blasts.

Roads, city centers, and residential areas were given high priority post-war and LMAC says most of the remaining work is in agricultural areas.

Mustafa Ismail, the mayor of Zawtar Sharqieh, says that when he and the other residents returned after the 2006 war, those whose homes remained lived in fear. He says that 70 percent of the village’s residents make their living from agriculture, so “if the fields weren’t cleaned, livelihoods would have been destroyed … and people would have left the village to other places in order to make a living.

“Some people knew what cluster bombs looked like, but most didn’t,” Ismail says.

Now, following extensive efforts at education on the hazards of the bombs, Shane Mapulanga, MAG’s Technical Field Advisor for Lebanon, says risky behavior is still not unheard of.

At the future football pitch, a family drives in between two active fields with a canoe strapped to the top of their car, on the way to the nearby Litani River. “People don’t stop their daily lives,” says Mapulanga.

He explains that people have told him that they “have been moving these things up and down in our fields [for years] and we have never been injured … don’t tell us [now] that they are dangerous.” Other people are aware of the danger in tending to uncleared fields, but chance it rather than risk losing much needed income.

And when the daring or the unlucky are hit, the types of injuries sustained are those that leave survivors changed for life. Limbs are lost. Eyes too. Pieces of metal are permanently embedded in bodies.

At the Lebanese Welfare Association for the Handicapped’s center in Sarafand, survivors receive treatment for their wounds in addition to prosthetics, physiotherapy, counseling and job training.

Aisha, a 17-year-old who lost a leg to a cluster bomb shortly after the 2006 war, is one of those treated at the center. She was sorting through the thyme her father sells when it exploded. The incident, she says, “changed all my life. I spent a month in my room because of my leg. It upset me to see people, and I was embarrassed to go out.”

She has a prosthetic leg now. Aisha says the gossiping in her village of Maarakeh has been painful, but she now feels comfortable enough to go to her local well and see friends. She smiles now. Aisha is studying sewing and hopes to open a tailoring shop.

The center where Aisha got her prosthetic leg and is taking vocational sewing classes is one of those fulfilling the convention’s requirement that countries assist survivors and affected communities. But despite its sparkling facilities, its director, Maha Gebai, says more funding is needed from both nongovernmental organizations and the government.

Unlike Aisha, Naimi Ghazzi, who also has a fake leg from the center, says she simply can’t get on with her life. She takes care of her mother at home, and says she spends most of her time crying.

Others, such as Mohammad al-Hajj, seem to be getting on fairly well considering the circumstances. Hajj stepped on a landmine in 1992, before the 2006 war and before widespread cleanup efforts began.

Now in his 40s, he’s one of 15 members of a football team completely comprised of survivors of landmines and cluster munitions, sponsored by the center in Sarafand.

In a red jersey, Hajj moves deftly around the Astroturf field where he is practicing. Hajj plays defense, and is right-footed. His left leg was amputated just below the knee, and he now wears a prosthetic.

He complains about the lack of assistance he has received from the government, but not about the effect of the blast on his game.

“I don’t have 100 percent balance,” he says, “and I don’t run 100 percent. But there’s a proverb that says ‘better late than never.’”

Perhaps this is good advice for the 48 signatories who have not yet ratified the convention, for those countries who have not signed, and for those states, this one included, who are facing a lengthy battle – the sort of battle that comes after the military battle – to help victims and their families face the rest of their much altered lives.