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:

• Recognise migrant domestic workers as part of the population affected by Lebanon’s emergencies, with full entitlement to humanitarian relief and mental health services.
• Invest in trauma-informed, culturally competent, and language-accessible psychosocial support led by trained community members from migrant backgrounds.
• Integrate mental health into labour and migration policy reforms, linking structural change to individual well-being.