Over 250,000 migrant women are employed by private households in Lebanon to carry out household tasks such as cleaning, cooking, and caring for children and the elderly.
The right to freedom of movement forms one of the cornerstones of the international human rights regime and the Lebanese legal system. It is a right that everyone ought to enjoy regardless of race, national origin, residence status, religion or any other criteria.
This study aims to shed light on the industry that profits from the recruitment of women from South Asian countries into domestic work employment in the Middle East, with a particular focus on Bangladesh, Jordan and Lebanon.
In recent years, the “sponsorship system” (kafala) in Lebanon and in other countries in the region has been identified as a core problem leading to the exploitation and abuse of migrant domestic workers.
Human trafficking and its link to migrant domestic labor in Lebanon is a complex, sensitive, and challenging issue. It raises numerous questions and demands further exploration.
On December 9, 2009, a Lebanese criminal court sentenced a Lebanese woman to 15 days in jail for repeatedly beating Jonalin Malibago, her Filipina maid, three years earlier. Lebanese newspapers hailed the case a landmark victory for the country’s estimated 200,000 migrant domestic workers (MDWs), many of whom report abuse at the hands of their employers. The case illustrated the positive role that the judiciary can play in protecting MDWs, even though the sentence was lenient given the violation. But it also raised at least one significant question: was the Malibago verdict a rare instance of...
This study, prepared by Dr. Ray Jureidini, identifies practices and patterns that are the key causes for women domestic migrant workers' vulnerability in Bahrain and provide alternative approaches for effective means for action.
To help expand the focus of the social protection debate to include the informal sector, particularly women workers, the ILO global programme STEP, "Strategies and Tools against Social Exclusion and Poverty" and the global network called Women in Informal Employment: Globalizi
