How did the numbers of migrant domestic workers coming to or staying regularly in Lebanon change over the past 5 years under the effects of the economic collapse and the Covid-19 pandemics? A comparative view in numbers.
The soap-making classes are one of the many initiatives launched by “Egna Legna”. While bonding in a safe-space, the project aims at empowering women with useful skills that will enable them to be self-supporting on return home.
What exactly is the Kafala System? Why don’t migrant domestic workers benefit from the Lebanese Law of Labor? How can this system come to an end or be reformed? The answers of a Lebanese lawyer and human rights activist.
Mariam jumped through the window of her employer’s house, saving herself from sexual harassment. Navigating the hardships of undocumented work, she started building an initiative to break the cycle of an unjust system.
Tsigereda and Dagafetch came from Ethiopia to deceived promises of work in Lebanon. Thrown into a place where nothing seemed to protect them from abuse, they became part of an initiative launched by migrant domestic workers and for them.
Coming from Ethiopia, Massracha worked in two houses in Lebanon. Her journey was long in a country where nothing protected her from exploitation and abuse. Today, with other migrant domestic workers, she is building the safe space and creating the help she couldn’t find years ago.
Covid-19, an economic crisis, an explosion that destroyed half of the city and the “Kafala system” that puts you, unprotected, at the mercy of your employer. This is the journey of migrant domestic workers in Lebanon and their fight for justice and self-empowerment.
You were promised a good work in Lebanon. You decide to embark on the journey, hoping to help your family back home and save some money. What would you do when you arrive and face a reality full of deceits?
From the coastal route to the Beirut- Damascus one, a journey with the memories of the train’s heroes, going back over decades of stories.
About Sabrine whose dreams of education were destroyed by the war in Syria and who, in Ain El Helwe refugees camp in Lebanon, only went through further delusions.
