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.
This paper is inspired by examples of domestic workers organizing themselves in different parts of the world through social and solidarity economy enterprises and organizations which have become more evident since the advent of the ILO Domestic Workers Convention 2011, (No.189
In most Arab countries, family matters including Domestic Violence continue to be handled by religious courts as civil legislation does not criminalise acts of violence within the family.
The brief of this qualitative exploratory study was to conduct targeted interviews with female employers of migrant domestic workers, psychiatrists, lawyers and institutional stakeholders in Lebanon.
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.
