Understanding the Struggles of Migrant Workers in Lebanon

As bombs fell on southern Lebanon in 2024, I thought about Rabih, a Lebanese man I met at his furniture shop on Lagos Island. I wondered how he and his family were doing back in Beirut. By October, the growing conflict between Israel and Hezbollah had forced over 1.2 million people to flee their homes. Lebanon's already weak infrastructure was in ruins, and its struggling economy was close to collapse.

Rabih struck me as a very friendly man, which is typical for someone running a business. But he had a warmth that went beyond the usual charm of a salesperson. He was lively and seemed to enjoy life. He laughed when I asked about his dabke, the lively folk dance popular at weddings and celebrations.

I have always been curious about the Lebanese diaspora and how they have created a strong presence worldwide. In Nigeria, the Chagoury brothers, Gilbert and Ronald, have built a huge business in construction, real estate, hospitality, and manufacturing. In Mexico, Carlos Slim Helú, whose father was a Lebanese immigrant, built a telecommunications empire that made him the richest man in the world at one point.

Across various regions like West Africa, Latin America, and North America, the story is the same. Lebanese communities have shown an amazing ability to turn challenges into opportunities and build lasting business networks.

But the Lebanese diaspora did not arise because Lebanese people preferred to live far from home. Not at all. It was shaped by years of violence, economic hardship, political chaos, and war. A lot of people started leaving in the late 1800s, especially after the sectarian violence in Mount Lebanon in 1860 and the downturn of the silk industry. Between 1860 and 1914, over 300,000 people left the area that would become Lebanon, many heading to the Americas, Africa, and Australia.

Then came World War I and the terrible famine that hit Mount Lebanon. The trend continued after that. So, the Lebanese diaspora formed not from one disaster but from a cycle of violence, insecurity, desperation, and the strong pull of family connections.

When Lebanese communities settled in countries like Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, and Sierra Leone, they created business and social networks that made it easier for others to migrate. The Lebanese experience is a strong example of turning displacement into economic power.

You might think that a people with such a history of displacement would understand the struggles of immigrants. But this is where Lebanon’s treatment of migrant workers is hard to understand.

For years, Lebanon has relied heavily on migrant domestic workers, mostly women from countries like Ethiopia, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and several African nations. Before the economic crisis that started in 2019, over 250,000 migrant domestic workers were estimated to be in the country. By 2024, that number dropped significantly.

These women do essential work that many Lebanese households depend on. They clean, cook, care for children, look after the elderly, and handle many tasks needed for daily life. But they are very vulnerable. Human rights groups have reported unpaid wages, confinement, passport seizures, physical abuse, sexual abuse, and other kinds of exploitation. The numbers are alarming.

A study involving 913 migrant domestic workers in Lebanon found that 68 percent experienced at least one incident of sexual harassment. The reported incidents ranged from inappropriate comments to unwanted touching, sexual propositions, and even actual sexual assault.

In December 2020, Lebanon passed Law No. 205, criminalizing sexual harassment and protecting victims and witnesses. This was seen as an important step forward. But migrant domestic workers remained largely outside the protections of Lebanon’s regular labor laws. Their situation is worsened by the kafala system, which ties a migrant worker’s legal status to an individual employer.

This is where the term modern slavery becomes hard to ignore. Kafala was not designed as a system of slavery. It was meant to regulate migrant labor. But when an employer has so much control over a worker’s job, residency, and ability to leave, the line between employment and coercion can blur.

A worker may arrive in Lebanon with a passport, a contract, and hopes of earning money for her family. But if her passport gets taken, her pay is withheld, and her movements are restricted, then the absence of physical chains does not mean she is free. Sadly, many migrant workers in Lebanon face this reality.

Modern slavery does not always need chains or auction blocks. Sometimes, it just needs a passport locked away, a phone taken, unpaid wages, and a system that gives the person holding the key too much power over the trapped person.

In 2020, a Lebanese man posted on Facebook, offering a Nigerian domestic worker for $1,000. He showed her passport and described her as a 30-year-old domestic worker who was “active and clean.”

There is also the haunting 2016 documentary A Maid for Each, by Lebanese filmmaker Maher Abi Samra. The film shows a Beirut domestic worker agency where women from Africa and Asia are matched with Lebanese households like they are commodities. It paints a grim picture of the industry. Domestic work becomes a market where the employer acts as master, and the worker is treated as property.

Then came the war of 2024. As Israeli attacks increased in Lebanon, many families fled their homes seeking safety. But some migrant domestic workers found they had nowhere to go.

Reuters reported on Fajima Kamara, a Sierra Leonean domestic worker whose employers fled to Dubai, leaving her without her passport, phone, or belongings. She ended up homeless in Beirut before finding temporary shelter with volunteers. Similar stories happened to many female live-in domestic workers, many of whom lacked the documents needed to move safely.

This shows the deeper issue with kafala. The problem is not only that some people are cruel. It is that a system can enable cruelty to thrive. The failure is not just one of compassion. It is a failure of fairness under the law.

Lebanon is not alone in this. In Saudi Arabia, the 2022 census showed 13.4 million non-Saudis, making up over 40 percent of the country’s population. Migrant workers are essential to the Saudi economy, working in various roles from construction to healthcare and domestic service.

But the Gulf region is not the same everywhere, and it would be wrong to say that all Arab countries or employers are the same. There have been real reforms.

Qatar has introduced a minimum wage and reforms allowing many migrant workers to change jobs without needing their employer’s permission. Saudi Arabia has made labor reforms aimed at reducing employer control over workers. Other Gulf countries have passed laws addressing workplace abuse, discrimination, and harassment. But these laws on paper do not always mean real freedom in practice.

There is also responsibility on the sending side of migration. Countries that send many migrant workers need to have strong systems for recruitment, enforceable contracts, pre-departure education, consular support, monitoring, emergency help, and repatriation. A woman should not have to rely on the kindness of strangers in another country to find out that the job she was promised has become a trap.

It is troubling to think about humanity. We have spent centuries outlawing slavery. Britain ended slavery in 1833, and it was abolished in most of the British Empire. Yet nearly two hundred years later, we have found ways to create systems that mimic some aspects of slavery without calling anyone a slave.

No chains. No auction block. No shackles. Just poverty on one side, privilege on the other, and a legal system that can make escape nearly impossible.

Perhaps this is the most uncomfortable lesson: suffering does not always teach empathy. Sometimes those who have been oppressed, once they gain power, can treat others with the same indignities they once faced.

History is full of such ironies, and this makes me think differently about Rabih and his people. When I remember him, I still see the cheerful Lebanese man in Lagos, laughing when I asked about his dabke. I think of his family, who may be scared and displaced by the bombs falling on their country.

I still feel sorry for him. I still feel for innocent Lebanese families caught in wars they did not start. But I also think of Fajima Kamara, left behind in a country where she worked to support another family. I think of our Nigerian sister whose passport was shown with a $1,000 price tag on Facebook. I think of the hundreds of thousands of African and Asian women who crossed oceans for a better life only to find that the door they came through can turn into a prison under the wrong conditions.

And that is where my feelings of sympathy become mixed, and it should not have to be.

A people’s suffering should never need another people’s suffering to be recognized.

The long and painful history of Lebanon should have taught us a simpler lesson: there is no dignity in escaping one cage only to build another for someone else.