On Labour Day, the world celebrates workers and the dignity of labour. For migrant domestic workers in Lebanon, this day remains a reminder of exclusion.
Despite the essential work migrant domestic workers do every day, caring for homes, children, and families. They remain excluded from Lebanese labour law and trapped under the Kafala system. Their legal status is tied to their employers, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation, abuse, and abandonment. And when war escalates, migrant domestic workers are once again left to face it alone.
During the 2024 Israeli war on Lebanon, now continuing into 2026, migrant domestic workers have been among those most abandoned and most excluded from protection and humanitarian assistance. As employers fled, many workers were left behind without shelter, food, wages, or access to their documents.
But migrant workers have never waited for systems to protect them; they have organised for and among each other. In the absence of humanitarian assistance, migrant domestic workers and migrant-led networks mobilised emergency relief by operating community kitchens, opening shelters, sharing resources, and making sure no one was left alone. They have acted as first responders not only for migrant communities, but for all those affected by war and displacement.
This is not new. This is how migrant workers survive and resist every day. Building community, organising collectively, and creating systems of care in the face of ongoing injustice.
This Labour Day, we honour the labour of migrant community leaders as first responders and humanitarian workers on the frontline of conflict, and we recognise their resistance, leadership, and collective power.
Migrant domestic workers are workers. Their labour is work. Their rights must be recognised and protected.
There can be no labour justice while migrant domestic workers remain excluded.
Support the work of community leaders by donating to the Reclaim Our Rights Collective’s GoFundMe Campaign
This International Women’s Day, we’re drawing attention to what gets left out of the conversation on women and displacement.
In Lebanon, migrant domestic workers under the kafala system face conflict without legal status, without documents, and with little inclusion in the emergency response. Many have been abandoned by their employers. Community leaders are stepping in where formal systems have not.
Our full IWD statement looks at what displacement means for women who were never free to move in the first place.
Up to 99% of migrant domestic workers (MDWs) in Lebanon are women. Their average age is 29, an age when many are menstruating and require private access to sanitation and hygiene facilities. Most live and work in private households, excluded from Lebanon’s labour law and instead governed by the Kafala system. This structure gives employers near-total control over workers’ movement and daily life. Their access to water, hygiene, and toilets is entirely dependent on their employers. In a country where public infrastructure is collapsing, this control often extends even to the most private aspects of their lives, including the free use of a toilet.
This year’s World Toilet Day theme, Accelerating Change: Sanitation for All in a Changing World, is an opportunity to reaffirm that safe sanitation is a human right, not a privilege, and to encourage both global and national actors, including policymakers in Lebanon, to make this right a reality for all. Yet, for MDWs in Lebanon, that right remains out of reach. As a state party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), Lebanon is obliged to guarantee everyone’s right to an adequate standard of living, including access to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene (WaSH). However, MDW testimonies reveal a grim reality of neglect, control, and daily humiliation. A particularly alarming pattern documented in interviews is the restriction or denial of access to bathrooms.
“When I was living with my employer, I did not have a private bathroom. I had to wait until no one was around to change my pad. Sometimes I waited too long and leaked onto my clothes. I couldn’t wash properly. I felt dirty, but there was nothing I could do.”
“I can’t take a shower when my employer is at home.”
“It makes me feel dirty and ashamed. I worry all day about leaks when I don’t have enough pads. I try not to stand too close to customers because I don’t want them to smell me.”
These accounts show that access to sanitation is far from guaranteed. For some, the bathroom is their only place to be alone, cry, or regain composure; it serves as a small refuge of fragile privacy in a life otherwise ruled by surveillance and confinement.
“I’m used to it, I let the moment pass when I’m in too much pain, I hide in the toilets if I’m at work.”
As a result of the escalation of the Israeli war on Lebanon at the end of 2024, these violations took an even harsher form during displacement. One woman shared:
“There was no bathroom to wash or even go. We used to do it behind a tree or at a friend’s house.”
Such testimonies, echoed across MWA and Jeyetna’s research on period poverty, show that denial of sanitation and menstrual care compounds gendered and racialised inequalities. Fear, shame, and anxiety accompany every attempt at basic hygiene, linking physical suffering to emotional distress. These conditions are not accidental; they result from structural systems that devalue migrant women’s bodies and labour.
Lebanon’s sanitation crisis is not just a failure of infrastructure. It is sustained by political and social exclusion. The Kafala system, paired with the absence of migrant inclusion in national WaSH and humanitarian frameworks, continues to deny MDWs basic health, dignity, and autonomy. Without privacy, safety, and cleanliness, migrant women endure constant stress and humiliation that takes a profound toll on their well-being.
As Lebanon continues to face instability, the sanitation crisis needs more than short-term aid. It requires dismantling structures that perpetuate inequality.
On this World Toilet Day, we call on the Lebanese government, international organisations, and local actors to:
Sanitation is not just about toilets. It is about dignity, equality, and every woman’s right to live with safety and self-respect, regardless of her status.
I had hoped to be a neurosurgeon. Or a computer expert.
But life didn’t give me a runway to begin with – not even a patch of it.
I met somebody online in 2015. He got me pregnant. Then he ghosted. That was my introduction to motherhood and the realities of survival.
No manuals.
No preparation.
Just my baby and me.
Alone.
Years passed. I was offered a job in 2021 in Europe. I waited nine months for a visa that never came. Ghosted again.
So I found another agent, who promised me a better job in Dubai. Instead, I was told that: “There’s a better deal in Lebanon — $250/month.”
But I was too young. So I did what I never imagined I would do – I changed my age by adding four years. I created a whole new identity, convinced I was buying my way into a better future. Instead, I walked my way into a trap. When I arrived in Lebanon, I wasn’t greeted – I was processed like a product for import. My legal documents were all taken, and I was picked up like a piece of luggage, handed over like property. That moment was when I came face-to-face with the reality of the Kafala system, without knowing the word itself.
My employer’s house was lovely on the exterior. But inside, it was too quiet. Too clean. Too staged. My voice wasn’t of any interest. My name wasn’t important. I was instructed when to wake, eat, and sleep. Instructed not to shower more than two times a week, then shamed for having body odour. Even shampoo had to be earned. And somehow… it was considered normal to treat me, another human being, this way. After only one month, I was moved to a second family.
My situation went from bad to worse. I had to wake up earlier than I did in the previous house and clean everything before anyone else woke up. And then, clean again when the Madam woke up, because, according to her, “it was not clean enough.”
Occasionally, I was punished if I didn’t meet their expectations. And sometimes I would go a whole day without even one square meal, and when it came to sleep and rest, I wasn’t allowed to go to bed before her, despite her regular sleeping time being after midnight, which meant I had to wake up at 6 AM at the latest.
I was instructed not to use the washing machine and was instead forced to wash her clothes by hand. No complaints were allowed. No compassion was offered. This situation continued for nine months, extending to three homes. I was forced to clean the house of my employer, her daughter, and her granddaughter, all while working for one boss for a poverty wage of merely $200, which was at times threatened to be reduced to $150. I broke inside by the blatant exploitation and decided to run away. I chose to try my luck as a freelancer, working on an hourly rate as a live-out domestic worker.
I managed to find the consulate and met other girls from my country. That is when I finally learned the name of my prison: The Kafala System. I became houseless and destitute, forced to sleep behind buildings. I begged for help. Life as a freelancer was not easy, considering I was still trapped under the Kafala System, still tied to my sponsor who had already put a letter of arrest out for me, consequently pushing me into an undocumented status with no residency permit. With no means of going back to my home country, I decided to report my exploitative employment conditions to the police, expecting deportation and a return home. I naively hoped the police would look into my eyes and see the desperate and vulnerable situation I was in. Instead, I was faced with the opposite and told, “Go tell your sponsor you want to go back.” The same sponsor who would have probably locked me up, or worse, was supposed to be my solution. That was the day I gave up hoping and started surviving.
I had no other choice but to embrace my new reality: I had to live. I had to stay alive for my son. That was the promise I had made, and I wasn’t ready to break it. I slowly descended into the secretive, invisible life of undocumented migrant workers in Lebanon.
A community of broken pieces like me: illegal, invisible, but still breathing. I started asking questions, trying to understand even a fraction of what lay ahead of me. But most of it, I had to learn the hard way, relying only on myself.
A taxi driver, God bless him, took pity on me and got me a job at his friend’s small shop for only $150 a month. But I counted my blessings, having work which included food and a place to sleep. Anything was better than a life on the streets of Beirut. I remained there for nine months. Met people and finally learned the ins and outs of the city. I built contacts, which eventually landed me a job again as a housemaid for $350. The family didn’t look very rich, but I disregarded the warning signs. I needed the money. But after a month and a half, I still haven’t received a salary. They told me to “Go get it from an office.” I did not even know where. Then one day, I saw $150 in cash lying around. I took it. I left.
Survival. Again, friends came through. Sheltered me. Helped me get a new job in Nabatieh, where I worked for one month. Again, no salary. Again, I left. It became a cycle. Try. Get used to it. Leave. Repeat.
Then, a miracle finally brought me some relief. A family on vacation in Lebanon offered to pay me $500 for one month as a domestic worker. I immediately jumped at the opportunity. For once, I had employers who were kind, fair, and honest. At the end of that short-term employment, I was paid the agreed salary and was offered a ride to the bus station. But my joy was short-lived when, upon my return to the shared house with other Kenyan girls, I was welcomed by a bag with my belongings placed outside the door. An attached message included the blunt and short announcement: “You are no longer welcome here.” No explanation was given as to what led to my sudden eviction; all I was offered was a harsh rejection. I picked up my things and started over again. By now, I had been freelancing for a year. Although life as an undocumented live-out worker wasn’t easy, it was mine, and I was free to make my own choices. I gathered a few other girls, who were also stranded, and we started a small communal life. We worked, we shared rent, and we supported each other.
After some time, I secured a better job. I gave some of the girls my old room and moved into a quieter, safer place with a friend. Finally, I thought I had found peace and comfort, until yet again, we tried to help other migrant women in need. We took in new girls and offered them safe shelter. Our generosity was our mistake. The new flatmates brought trouble by inviting men into our home. Noise and arguments caused problems with our tenancy. One day, while I was at work, the landlord phoned me and complained that some boys had caused a scene outside the house. He had had enough with the constant issues and was unwilling to continue to house us. By the time I arrived home, we were evicted. He threatened to call the police and report us if we didn’t leave his property by 10 AM the next day. I had no money and no place to call home. My savings account back home in Kenya was frozen because my brother kept withdrawing all the remittances I had sent. Even the friends I had made before turned away and abandoned me. I ended up sleeping under a bridge with a friend beside me. That was how far down I had fallen. But God didn’t leave us behind; instead offered us a path to overcome our adversities.
A message shared by someone in a Kenyan community group chat was the answer to our hardships. A local organisation was providing shelter and assistance to migrant workers in need and had one available spot for placement. On the very same day, I also found new employment as a housemaid. My friend and I made a deal: My friend would request admission to the organisation’s temporary shelter while I would work in my new employment. But, once again, I found myself in an exploitative situation with no salary being paid after working for over a month. I had reached a dead end with only one solution. I turned to my backup plan: requesting admission to the shelter. I was lucky, and a place was available for me to claim. In total, I lived in Lebanon for three years, during which I faced hardships but also made friends. I found support and the space to heal with the support of the organisation running the shelter. The shelter’s assistance included the coordination of my repatriation process. But my return to Kenya was obstructed by my previous employer and sponsor, who had raised false criminal charges against me, accusing me of theft. She denied my wish to return home and instead wanted me to remain trapped and unable to leave Lebanon. There is no reason other than her malicious intent to extend my suffering. She wished for me to rot.
I remained in the shelter, able to heal with the support of the organisation’s social workers, and finally, after waiting for ten months, justice finally arrived. Not glamorously. Not loudly. Just enough to set me free and leave Lebanon and the Kafala system behind me. I returned to Kenya empty-handed. No money. No savings. But in defiance of all the experienced adversities, I came back with my spirit intact. My son is still suffering and unwell, waiting for a treatment to alleviate his condition. But for now, he is strong enough to keep his heart beating. Many people around me kept making remarks about my circumstances: “You came back with nothing?” And I continue to answer with an unwavering smile: “Nothing in my hands, but with all the hope and faith still beating in my heart.”
I did not return rich, but I returned alive. And now I can finally speak and share my story of how I prevailed against the Kafala system and all its forms of abuse. For I know what it is like to be silenced, I want to raise my voice on behalf of all my sisters still suffering and surviving in Lebanon and use my hard-fought freedom to raise awareness about the plight of migrant workers trapped by the Kafala system. To the countless migrant women who stayed behind: You are not what they say you are. You are not your bruises. You are not their maid. You are a mother, a daughter, a sister, a human being. You are a warrior. You are invincible.
World Mental Health Day 2025
Over the past six years, Lebanon has endured one compounded crisis after another: economic collapse, political paralysis, social unrest, the Beirut Port explosion, and now, the devastating war that has once again exposed the deep inequalities shaping the country. These crises have had a profound impact on the population’s mental health, but their toll has not been evenly felt. Among those most affected are the approximately 230,000 migrant domestic workers trapped in Lebanon’s abusive and exploitative Kafala system.
This year’s World Mental Health Day theme, Access to Services: Mental Health in Catastrophes and Emergencies, emphasises the urgent need to ensure that mental health care remains accessible to all, especially in times of crisis. However, for migrant domestic workers (MDWs) in Lebanon, access to such services has always been systematically denied.
During the Israeli war on Lebanon, migrant women were once again reminded of their invisibility. Countless MDWs were denied access to emergency shelters, humanitarian aid, and evacuation efforts, as their lives were deemed expendable. While embassies struggled to provide even minimal assistance, many women were left trapped in employers’ homes under conditions of fear, confinement, and isolation. These experiences did not occur in a vacuum; they are the latest manifestation of a decades-long culture of exclusion and abuse enabled by the Kafala system, which ties a worker’s legal status to their employer and grants near-total control over their mobility and freedom.
The mental health impact of these intersecting layers of violence is staggering yet persistently overlooked. MDWs face a daily reality of institutionalised racism, misogyny, and labour exploitation, compounded by the trauma of displacement, separation from family, and the burden of caregiving responsibilities under oppressive conditions. For many, the cumulative stress has led to an epidemic of depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress, and suicidal ideation. This epidemic remains unacknowledged by most humanitarian actors and state institutions in Lebanon.
While the international community often frames mental health in emergencies as a universal need, it rarely addresses the structural barriers that determine whose mental health is prioritised. In Lebanon, MDWs are largely excluded from national health and social protection systems. They are rarely seen in public health campaigns, and when services do exist, they are often linguistically inaccessible, culturally insensitive, or unaffordable. The result is a silent humanitarian crisis within a crisis, where the women sustaining households across Lebanon are left without the basic right to care for their own minds and bodies.
The problem is not only one of access but also of recognition. The trauma endured by MDWs is not incidental but rather a direct consequence of an economic model that devalues migrant labour, a migration regime that normalises confinement, and an aid sector that frequently reproduces exclusionary hierarchies. Even well-intentioned organisations struggle to respond adequately, constrained by limited funding, donor priorities, and fragmented mandates. Trauma-informed, community-based, and holistic psychosocial support approaches, ones that center migrant women as agents of healing rather than passive beneficiaries, remain rare exceptions rather than the norm.
As Lebanon continues to navigate instability, it is crucial to understand that mental health is not a luxury, but a right, and one that cannot be realised without dismantling the systems of violence that undermine it. Addressing MDWs’ mental health means ending the Kafala system, reforming migration and labour laws, and ensuring that humanitarian responses are inclusive, equitable, and migrant-led.
On this World Mental Health Day, we call on the Lebanese government, international organisations, and local actors to:
On the occasion of International Domestic Workers’ Day, Mariam, a former MDW, community leader and member of MWA shares her journey from being a domestic worker to being trapped under the Kafala to finding herself as a community leader. This is her story:
It was my dream to study and become a journalist or magistrate. I grew up in Africa, in a country, where most women still remain at home to take care of the household rather than to pursue a career. I already believed back then that more women should be involved in changing our country the way journalists or magistrates did. So I graduated high school as a teenager in the city and planned to attend college to follow that dream.
Despite my dreams and aspirations being clear, my family and I did not have the financial means to cover the costs of going to college. So when I was 17 years old, a family friend told my mother about this ‘programme’ to go to the Middle East to earn money. It was clear from the beginning that I would do domestic work while working in Lebanon. I didn’t mind that. For me domestic work would be the stepping stone to get closer to my dream of studying journalism or law.
So my mother and I agreed that I should make the decision to travel with one of these programmes and earn money. In order for me to be prepared, my mother started to teach me the most important skills of domestic work and child care. Although I did grow up as a daughter in an African family, I was not expected to help in the household. My mother was always taking care of tidying up for us, so it was necessary for me to be introduced to the basics, such as making the bed or cleaning up the kitchen.
I don’t know why the broker recruiting me was different from the ones many of my African sisters met. When I prepared to leave my country in 2015, I was not required to pay a fee. All I had to pay for was the renewal of my passport and the transportation to the offices in the city. I think I was an exception, because in my case, the sponsor / Kafeel paid for all my expenses. However, even if I was an exception in regard to paying fees, I was not an exception in being given false promises regarding the working conditions. I was promised new clothing and a new phone, so I left most of my personal belongings back home and gave some of them away to friends, including my phone.
I arrived in Lebanon, as a minor, 17 years old, still steadfast that this ‘programme’ will open a door of opportunities for me to save enough money and return with the financial means to attend college. Although my arrival should have already given me clear signs that something was wrong. At the airport, my employer didn’t pick me up immediately and I remained in that infamous waiting room for migrant domestic workers inside the airport. The General Security officer at the airport immediately confiscated my passport and handed it over to the recruitment agent responsible for my employment. The agent then brought me to the office, where I had to undergo medical tests before being placed with my employer. I arrived at my employer’s house, where my Madame immediately received my passport and then showed me my room. I didn’t even know where I was; all I knew was that I was in a village far away from the capital, Beirut. I realised that things were not as great as I was promised, but I still remained positive. My situation became clear when I realised I wasn’t allowed a phone and that the ‘new clothes’ I was promised were old rags that I wouldn’t have even worn back home, and that my bedroom was a small pantry with a foldable bed. I was explained what my responsibilities were in the household, such as waking up at 5 am to prepare breakfast and ensure the children are ready to go to school, as well as managing the entire household for the family. Although I was only a 17-year-old girl, it became very clear very soon how I was perceived by my employer. Very quickly, there were signs that the Mister objectified me, while his wife, the Madame, blamed me for her husband’s interest in me. Until today, I am not sure what happened, but during my employment, within a few weeks, I kept getting sick and losing consciousness. After this repeated several times, at one point, I ended up unconscious and woke up in a hospital. My agent met me there and said it was time for me to be placed in another household. There was an implied concern that I was poisoned.
I ended up being placed with another family closer to Beirut. Despite having hope for a better experience, I was proven wrong. During the 18 months I worked in that house, I experienced the worst forms of abuse and violence, which eventually led to my decision to escape at night and get away as far and as quickly as possible, despite losing my passport and immediately voiding my residency, pushing me into becoming undocumented in Lebanon.
I remained on the streets for several hours in the middle of the night until I met another migrant worker, who recommended that I contact a local CSO. I received support to find shelter and heal from my traumatic experiences. In order to survive and ensure an income, I started to work as a freelance domestic worker, receiving payment on an hourly basis. While working for my own survival, I also started to become a part of the various networks of migrants resisting their oppression and being able to attend sessions and capacity building. I came to the realisation that I am not alone in this experience. It became clear that many MDWs have had similar experiences and that this normalisation of violence wouldn’t change unless we start mobilising.
It was in that moment, as a freelance domestic worker, that somehow my dreams from back home became reality, even if in a different form: instead of a journalist or magistrate, I naturally developed into a community organiser.
As a community organiser, I amplified the voice of my community and shared their stories, similar to a journalist, and I also advocated with INGOs and the consulate for many cases, similar to a magistrate. Throughout the years, I built my skills and my network to advocate for the MDWs trapped as live-in workers in abusive households under the Kafala system. Throughout the years, I experienced the transformation of being a minor, trafficked into Lebanon as a migrant domestic worker, to being a survivor of violence and abuse, to becoming a community leader advocating for our rights. I always knew I had it in me: being an activist, but I didn’t have the opportunity to explore it. It was through being a domestic worker and experiencing the abuses under the Kafala and then being part of networks that I was able to discover my true calling.
Throughout my time in Lebanon, domestic work was what gave me the income to be able to support myself as well as my community. I only worked as a live-in domestic worker for a little bit over two years, but I did continue to work as a freelance / live-out domestic worker for nearly eight years. I worked several part-time jobs as a domestic worker and provided childcare.
My message is that domestic work is work, and it was the income generated through domestic work in Lebanese households that led me to become a community leader and provide support to my community, which is who I am today. In the same way that many activists have jobs to earn money and then use a part of that income for their causes, the same can be applied to domestic workers and their activism.
Although my dream used to be a magistrate or journalist, many years ago when I was a 17 year old minor arriving in Lebanon, looking back, I am exactly where I want to be. When asked if I would want to go to college now to study journalism or law, I would say no. I am doing exactly what I am meant to do. Despite the Kafala system, I am living my dream.
On the occasion of International Menstrual Health Day, MWA, together with Jeyetna and six Migrant Community Leaders, is launching its participatory research report on Menstrual Experiences Under The Kafala System. The report is the result of a one-year project on Sexual And Reproductive Rights and Health. Download the full report for insight into the intersections of Period Poverty and the Kafala System.
Today, we honour the resilience of migrant domestic workers in Lebanon — and we demand justice.
It is time to abolish the Kafala system and include domestic work under the Lebanese Labour Law.
Download and read Mary’s story, whose experience under the Kafala system reflects the daily reality of thousands of migrant women trapped in cycles of exploitation, racism, and violence. Like Mary, many migrant workers arrive in Lebanon following the hope to earn money to fund their dreams, whether it is enrolling in university or opening their own small business in their country.
Migrant Workers’ Action has submitted an Input to the UN Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons, after a call for submissions by civil society to discuss trafficking of MDWs as well as the prevention, rights protection and access to justice. The Kafala system is enabling trafficking and, with it, modern-day slavery in Lebanon. Download our briefing to learn more about the issue and read our elaboration based on previous research reports.
Anti-Racism Movement and Migrant Workers’ Action together with ten NGOs and ten community leaders and migrant groups have released a statement for urgent action – The IOM should open a shelter for displaced and stranded Migrant Workers in Lebanon