No More Kafala Law in Lebanon! Give Women Migrant Workers Their Rights!

• Sexual abuse and rape
• Verbal and physical violence
• Passport confiscation
• Long working hours, no breaks, no day off, 
• No payments, late payments, deductions from salary,
• Restrictions on movement and communication,
• Food deprivation
• Inadequate accommodation and lack of privacy, 
  Restrictions on access to healthcare, impact on mental health

These are abuses that migrant domestic workers in Lebanon are subjected to today. 

This is racism. This is exploitation. This is slavery!

Since January 2007, at least 1300 migrant domestic workers have died in Lebanon. Of these deaths, many are classified by the embassies of the migrants as suicide, while others were caused by workers falling from high buildings, often while trying to escape their employers. This is due to the high rate of abuse targeting domestic workers, and no laws protecting them.

Lebanon has over 250,000 migrant domestic workers coming from African and Asian countries to work in private households. The majority of these migrants are women.

Some of which are: 

Bangladesh

Sri Lanka

Ethiopia

Ghana

Nepal

Indonesia

Philippines

Madagascar

Nigeria

All migrant domestic workers are excluded from the Lebanese Labour Law and are governed instead by the kafala system, which ties the legal residency of the worker to the contractual relationship with the employer.

Tay, a 23 year old Ghanian, was found dead March, 14 2020, after leaving several messages pleading for organizations and family to help her escape the abuse she was receiving from her employers. This is murder.

Under the Kafala system, workers cannot travel, resign, change jobs or return home without the permission of the family who hired them. The Kafala system binds the worker to their employer. A worker may not change employer or break the terms of the contract unless the employer signs a release waiver.  This is especially difficult for those who are abused daily by their employers with no way to turn. As the Human Rights Watch said this system puts workers in exploitation and abuse.

Even in cases of severe abuse towards the worker, the worker loses their regular migration status if the employment is cancelled. If a migrant domestic worker refuses such conditions and decides to leave the home of the employer without the latter’s consent, the worker risks losing their residency status and consequently detention and deportation.

“Two domestic workers are estimated to die in Lebanon each week, many in suicides or botched escape attempts. A domestic worker, from Sri Lanka, was found hanging from a tree in Tyre [May 2019]”, the state-run National News Agency reported.

Article 7 of the Lebanese Labour Law explicitly excludes domestic workers from the standard labor protections given to the other classes of employees.[17] The domestic workers have been denied the right to freedom of association and banned from union membership under Article 92 of the Labour Law, added to which they have almost no legal safeguards which leaves them subject to abuse and exploitation. 

The Standard Unified Contract is a contract between the Employer and the migrant domestic worker. It states the right for a clean and private place in which to relax, access to medical care, including dental and eye care, to work for ten hours a day with frequent short breaks, and the right for one phone call every month, the right for sick leave when there is a medical report, but no free legal assistance for the domestic worker.

Although these rights are stated, it remains ineffective as the employers do not comply with these rights, and matters are usually not settled in court, but between the employer and the worker. Not only that, but even the rights mentioned are not satisfactory enough to represent the rights of a human being. This needs to change! Even the Islamic State (ISIS) has adopted the Kafala system for their foreign jihadist fighters. How much more inhumane can this law be!

We Kindly Demand:

1. Abolishing Kafala law in Lebanon, and initiate a more dignified and humane law for migrant workers.
2. The applicability of the national labour law in destination countries should be extended to include domestic workers or specific legislation should be developed to protect the domestic workers as per the ILO Convention concerning Decent Work for Domestic Workers. 
3. Offer labour rights to migrants, especially women in domestic work in the country.
4. Offer rights to healthcare, privacy, safety, and legal support.
   The sponsoring offices that recruit migrant workers must be safe, offer legal and emotional support to the workers they receive, and must comply and assure the received migrants of their international human rights laws otherwise they must be shut down.
5. The families that request a house worker must be inspected by an appropriate entity or organization beforehand. 
   Monthly visits to check on the wellbeing of the house worker must be obligatory.
6. Justice must be served in situations where the worker has experienced any form of abuse, be that emotional, verbal or physical abuse.
7. The private recruitment process must be reformed; formalized and monitored to ensure protection of the rights and welfare of migrant workers. 
8. To discontinue the individual sponsorship system and replace it with the National Employment Office or Ministry of Labour (MOL) in the destination country overseeing the recruitment process. A Government officer under the MOL would take full responsibility for entry, transfer and departure of migrant workers. Thus the migrant worker would make a contract with the department, as would the employer who would pay the wages to the department.
9. An employment visa, rather than the sponsor should regulate the migrant workers’ entry to the destination country. The employment based visa would allow workers the right to resign within one month notice 
10. The migrant worker must be in possession of her passport, travel documents and mobile phone at all times. A severe penalty should be introduced for an employer who does not abide by this regulation. 
11. Migrant workers' basic human right to freedom of movement must be upheld, particularly for migrant domestic workers who should not be forcibly confined in the home. 
12. Workers must be able to change or terminate employment at will without losing valid immigration status and without having to obtain the employers permission. The employer should no longer be responsible for filing a case when they leave.
13. Policies on labour mobility should be developed with reference to the ILO Multilateral Framework on Labour Migration (2006) to ensure a rights-based approach. 
14. Strict enforcement measures should be introduced for recruitment agencies and employers that violate migrant workers rights. Incentives should also be introduced to enhance best practice in the recruitment process.

Who We Are

We are a collective of advocates, professionals, and organizations from distinct countries around the world: Lebanon, Tunisia, Egypt, Argentina, Mexico, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Ghana. We work on migrants’ and women's rights, and we want to ensure that with your support we can give migrant workers, especially women domestic workers, their human rights in Lebanon.

Organizations Supporting this Petition

This Is Lebanon - Lebanon

Asociación de Mujeres Unidas, Migrantes y Refugiadas en Argentina - Argentina

Asociación Civil Razonar, de DDHH con Perspectiva de Genero - Argentina

Survivors' Network - Cameroon

Not 4 Trade - Tunisia

Youth Against Slavery Movement - USA

Thank you to all those who are supporting this petition! Let us end Modern Slavery and give migrants, especially women migrants, their human rights!