UN raises plight of migrant domestic workers in Lebanon

Some migrant domestic workers in Lebanon have been locked in homes while their employers flee from Israel’s airstrikes against Hezbollah, the United Nations says.

The UN’s International Organization for Migration says foreign domestic staff were increasingly being abandoned by the Lebanese families to face heightened danger in the conflict.

The IOM raises the plight of Lebanon’s 170,000 migrant workers, many of whom are women from countries such as Ethiopia, Kenya, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Bangladesh and the Philippines.

“We are receiving increasing reports of migrant domestic workers being abandoned by their Lebanese employers, either left on the streets or in their homes as their employers flee,” says Mathieu Luciano, the IOM’s head of office in Lebanon.

“They face very limited shelter options,” he tells a press briefing in Geneva, via video from Beirut, adding that on Thursday he visited a shelter in the capital housing 64 Sudanese families “who have nowhere else to go”.

He says the IOM was receiving increasing requests from migrants seeking help to go home. Many countries have also sought the agency’s help to evacuate citizens.

However, “this would require significant funding — which we currently do not have,” he adds.

The situation for Lebanon’s migrant workers is precarious, as their legal status is often tied to their employer under the “kafala” sponsorship system governing foreign labour.

Rights groups say the system allows for abuses including the withholding of wages and the confiscation of official documents — which provide workers their only lifeline out of the country.

“We’ve seen in the south that the employers would leave but then would either leave the domestic workers on the streets, wouldn’t relocate with them — or actually even worse, lock the domestic worker in, to make sure that the house is kept while they are seeking safety somewhere else,” he says.

Luciano says those left on the street would struggle to relocate or get to safety, while many cannot speak Arabic.

“Many are undocumented, They don’t have papers. As a result they are pretty reluctant to seek humanitarian assistance because they fear they will be arrested and may be deported,” he says.

Luciano notes there were “huge issues around mental health” among migrant domestic staff working in Lebanon.