I arrived in Lebanon from the Philippines in February 2010. For nearly three years, I never saw my passport. When my mother died, I begged my employer to let me go home to say goodbye. He always promised, but he never let me go. Instead, he took away my days off and made me beg for my own salary. I was so depressed. I had no choice but to run away, leaving behind my documents and everything I owned.

Life 'outside' was terrifying. When I met him—a man 23 years older than me—I didn't even understand his Arabic. I was afraid he would cause trouble for me. All I wanted was to earn money for my son back in the Philippines. But he stayed. He kept calling. He wanted to make sure I was safe.

By 2013, I was pregnant. We knew being undocumented would make everything a battle. When our son was born in 2014, he was born into the same shadow I lived in. Then, our son got very sick and needed two major surgeries. Because I was a migrant without papers, we couldn't complain when the doctors made mistakes. We had no right to medical care.

The system tried to break us. When we went to General Security to fix our son's papers, they put me in handcuffs. They judged me and looked at me like a prostitute just because I had a relationship. My previous employer lied and said I stole my passport. I was thrown into jail—50 days under the bridge in Adliye. I was surrounded by women who were so helpless, eating food that was almost impossible to swallow just to survive. My son needed me most, but I was behind bars.

The father of my son never missed a single visiting day. He provided everything I needed while I was in that cell.

I was finally released in November 2015, one day after my birthday. It was the best gift I ever received. But the struggle didn't end. We had to pay massive penalties because my employer had never processed my papers while I worked for him. We decided to get married—it was the one beautiful thing in the middle of a legal nightmare. We fought for over a decade so our son could finally have his Lebanese ID and go to school legally.

The man I wasn't interested in at first is now my husband and my HOME.

After thirteen years of love, tears, and trials, we are still together. Under the Kafala system, love is forbidden. They see us only as slaves or servers, with no right to have friends or partners. But we fought for our love. Love is for everyone. I am a wife, I am a mother, and I am worth a decent life.

By Arlene