Under the country's kafala (or sponsorship) system, the legal status of migrant domestic workers is in the hands of their employers. If the employer terminates their contract, the kafala gets automatically cancelled, turning these workers into illegal aliens and putting them at risk of arrest and deportation. In addition, although confiscating passports is forbidden by law, it still happens.

Which means that foreign workers, most of whom are women, have very little means to defend themselves was it because the employer abuses them in any way or refuses to pay their salary, doesnt let them call their family back home or allow them to take breaks on Sundays.

If out of desperation they flee, they automatically become undocumented migrants. On the streets of Lebanon, they can find themselves as vulnerable, if not more so, than they were in their abusive workplace. If caught, they could be thrown in prison. In some cases, they end up killing themselves or being killed.

If we are calling for our rights, we need to be extending our concerns to foreign workers as well. The same system that we are seeking to change is abusing hundreds of thousands of foreign workers. This is why the Lebanese revolution must also call for the abolition of the kafala system in order to get these human beings their minimum rights and freedom.