Migrant domestic workers in Lebanon

Lebanon is home to more than 250.000 migrants (mostly women) that work in the domestic service sector. In this sector, people do the household tasks, such as cooking and cleaning, but also supporting families with raising their family. The domestic service sector has a lot of problems that are mostly caused by the Kafala system. This system binds the migrant workers to their employers. It gives employers a lot of power in relation to the employee. As a result, many domestic workers are exploited and abused. The migrants are in a difficult position as they are dependent on their employer, and their families rely financially on remittances, or, money that someone sends to their family or home country, usually from another country where they are working.

## History

Lebanon has a long history of employing migrants for domestic work. Slavery was a normal and accepted part of life in Islamic societies in Arabia. The Qur'an says slaves should not be treated cruelly or harshly without reason, so most slaves worked in households. In Lebanon this continued after Lebanon became part of the Ottoman Empire in 1516. During the 19th and 20th century, slavery became more unpopular under the pressure of the British Empire that wanted to stop the slave trade completely. Slavery was officially banned in Lebanon when it came under French rule in 1923.

After slavery was banned, many households still employed migrant domestic workers, usually young girls from poor families . After Lebanon became an independent country in 1943, it turned into a safe and wealthy country compared to other countries in the region. Because of this, young migrant workers from different areas(such as Syria, Palestine and Egypt) started coming to Lebanon for work. This practice made Lebanon depend on foreign domestic workers. Over time, Lebanon’s relationships with other Arab countries got worse, and jobs became less secure. In order to help control people moving into Arab countries for work, the Kafala System started in the 1950s.

In 1975, a civil war broke out in Lebanon that lasted for 15 years. During the war, the Lebanese economy started to fall apart. Many small factories closed, and workers either left the country or joined the fighting. Many workers from nearby countries left Lebanon because it became too dangerous, or were kicked out. Furthermore, about 40% of the Lebanese population left the country between 1975 and 1989 because of the war. This created a need for more foreign workers to replace them. A few years after the war started, recruitment agencies began bringing Asian workers to Lebanon. Asian people were already becoming a big part of the foreign workforce in the Gulf countries because of economic problems in Asia.  Between 1990 and 2006, most domestic workers in Lebanon came from Sri Lanka, followed by workers from the Philippines and Ethiopia.

The Kafala system is still used in Lebanon, and the country has faced criticism from other nations. In the early 2000s, the United States ranked Lebanon as Tier 2 for human trafficking, meaning the country has problems but is trying to fix them. Recently, groups like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have tried to bring attention to the unfair treatment of workers under the Kafala system in Lebanon. But even with this attention, the Lebanese government has done very little to fix the problem.

## The Kafala System

The Kafala system forms the basis of the bad treatment of migrant workers in Lebanon. Through this system, foreign people that want to become a domestic worker in Lebanon need a sponsor (kafeel) to come to the country. Sponsors are found with help from an agency. The agency is a company that connects workers and employers and gets paid for it. After the contract is worked out, the migrants will fly over from their home country to Lebanon. When they arrive, migrants are often illegally asked to hand over their passport and other important documents to their sponsor. Because of this, the sponsor gets almost total control over what the worker can do and where they can go. The migrant worker fulfills tasks in and around the house to support the sponsor in return for a salary between $100 and $400. This payment is mostly sent back as a remittance to the home country to support other family members.

### Characteristics of Domestic Migrant Employers

Most employers of domestic workers are women, and they are mostly middle-aged or older. Only 1 in 10 interviewees are between 21 and 30 years old. Nearly half are between 31 and 50 years old. 18.2% are 51 to 60 years old, and almost a quarter  are older than 60. There are more older adults in this group compared to the general age profile of people in Lebanon. This is because older people need more help and are more likely to hire domestic workers. They are also more likely to agree to take part in surveys.

The gender breakdown shows 84.9% women and 15.1% men. This is expected, as it is usually seen as the woman’s job to manage paid domestic help in the house. So, the woman in charge of the house was often the one who answered the questions about the migrant domestic worker.

Religion does not seem to play a big part in the hiring of a migrant domestic worker. The bigger a household is, the more often a migrant domestic worker is sought out. The large majority of employers (73%) do not give their workers a copy of their contract. This often leads to the worker misunderstanding the terms of their contract. For example, a standard contract is for one year of work, but domestic migrant workers often believe that it is for three.

### Characteristics of the migrant workers

Migrants can be divided in two groups of origin roughly spoken: they either come from Asia (more specifically the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand or Sri Linka) or from Africa (Ethiopia, Nigeria, etcetera). The largest group of migrant domestic workers in Lebanon are from Ethiopia. This is surprising because the Ethiopian government has banned its citizens from traveling to work in Lebanon.  Migrant workers are usually younger than 30 years. Migrant workers earn between $100 and $400 per month and this is mostly dependent on the background of the migrant and the wealth of the employer. The freedom of the workers differ. Up to 43% does have a key to enter the house of the sponsor independently while up to 14% is locked up when the employer leaves the house.

## Related pages

- Slavery
- Economic migration