Some legal cases have been assigned to lawyers by community movements and organizations such as Egna Legna, and there have been some successes where women have been released. However, the sponsors continue to have no consequences for their actions, leading to an endless cycle of violence. Rogie arrived in Lebanon from the Philippines in 2015 under a housework contract on behalf of Bernard`s brother Edgard Hanna. As is customary in Lebanon, his passport and identity cards were confiscated upon arrival. In a practice that is illegal under Lebanese law but remains universally accepted and unregulated, she was entrusted to Bernard to work in his hair salon. According to a community member who hosted Rogie in her home and whose name was not given to protect Rogie`s safety, when the Lebanese economy collapsed, she began to have disputes with her employer over partial or unpaid wages. When she raised these issues, he verbally abused her. Lebanon was home to more than 250,000 foreign domestic workers before the 2019 economic crisis, the vast majority of whom were women. Many argue that the kafala or sponsorship system that regulates the migration and labor of these workers instead of national labor law is also a form of modern slavery. The first criminal case for slavery and slave trade, brought by a migrant domestic worker against her former employer (sponsor) and recruiter, opened today, but both defendants did not appear and the hearing date was postponed.

As a result, the judge decided to notify them by exceptional means, such as posting the notice on their door and posting it at the courthouse. Lebanon`s Ministry of Labour estimates that the country hosts 250,000 foreign domestic workers, mostly women from Africa and Asia. Article 7 of the Labour Code explicitly excludes foreign domestic workers and denies them the protections to which other workers are entitled, including a minimum wage, limitation of working hours, a weekly day of rest, overtime pay and freedom of association. Instead, their status in Lebanon is governed by the kafala system, a restrictive regime of customary laws, regulations and practices that link the legal residence of migrant workers to their employers. Employees cannot leave or change jobs without their employer`s consent. Those who leave their employers without permission risk losing their legal residence and risk imprisonment and deportation. The kafala system is an oppressive system that controls unskilled migrant workers in the Arab States, most of whom are women from Africa and South Asia. The system requires that each worker be sponsored by a citizen of the host country. This employer, also known as Kafeel, is responsible for the legal status and visa of the employee. When the employee`s mandate ends, the employer can either extend it or terminate the employee`s status, which requires the employee`s immediate expulsion. In this repressive system, workers are excluded from Lebanese labor laws, which regulate minimum wages, maximum working hours, holidays and overtime.

The second trial of Lebanon`s first monumental criminal case, in which a migrant domestic worker sues her former employer and recruiter for slavery and slave trade, was adjourned on Thursday. Antonia Mulvey, Executive Director of LAW, said: “We are disappointed that today`s proceedings have been postponed. However, the judge`s warning to the respondents sends a strong signal that the HD case is crucial, and we thank everyone, including representatives of the Swedish and German embassies, who came to the courthouse to show their support. It is time to break the pattern of slavery, slave trade, torture and racial discrimination in Lebanon and formally challenge a system that perpetuates abuse and torture of migrant domestic workers. LAW is committed to continuing to support MH and other foreign domestic workers who come forward. The kafala system is a sponsorship system used by citizens of a country who wish to employ a migrant worker for a specific short-term purpose. The host citizen (sponsor) is responsible for the legal status, visa and protection of the employee. It was founded in the 1950s in several Middle Eastern countries and is still used today as a tool to maintain the oppression of migrant workers. Most workers enter the kafala system through a very unregulated recruitment industry. Each recruitment agency differs in its operations, but some of the more abusive require workers to pay fees and go into debt to travel abroad to work. Agencies go into poor neighborhoods and ask agents to manipulate citizens into believing that they will improve their lives if they join the system.

The agencies tell citizens that they will have enough money to send them back to their children as well. When workers accept, many spend the rest of their time working every day trying to pay off the debts they have accumulated by going to the host, which are often never fully repaid. This debt leaves them in irreversible servitude to a landlord, a power dynamic similar to that of slavery. Recruitment agencies often lie to kafala workers, demanding above-average wages, decent jobs, neat living conditions, and reimbursement of recruitment fees. When they arrive in the host country and are assigned to their kafeels, the workers are shocked to discover that the life for which they were advertised was fake. Now they have no way out, as they are already in debt to the agency or host and find themselves without a passport, which was quickly confiscated by the Kafeels after the first interaction. Up to 84% of workers would not have travelled from home if they had been informed of the truth about their situation. A 2016 study by the International Labour Organization (ILO) shows that only 16.4% of employers pay $300 or more. 30 employers (about 2% of the sample) reported paying workers less than $150 per month. The legal minimum wage in 2016 was $450 per month, but as domestic workers are not covered by the national system, this discrimination has not been controlled. On 31 March, a Lebanese court heard arguments in a case aimed at completely changing this system. For the first time in the region, she argues that the kafala system subjects migrant domestic workers to slavery and the slave trade.

The case was brought by Legal Action Worldwide (LAW), a human rights organization representing MH, an Ethiopian domestic worker, who alleges that her employer, May Saadeh, who appeared in court with her lawyers, physically assaulted and tortured her for eight years and denied her contact with the outside world. including her family, while forcing her to work 15 hours a day without free time. paid them only for 13 months of work. A guilty verdict carries a sentence of up to 15 years. Although they technically have the right to terminate their contract if their sponsor subjects them to physical or sexual violence, this rarely happens. According to a 2020 ILO report, this is due to the fact that “there is still no state mechanism for a domestic worker to request termination of her contract – no internal protocol or staff to investigate, manage or carry out the termination process.” Stories like Rogie`s are not uncommon in Lebanon. Their abuses may have been filmed, but thousands of other migrant domestic workers suffer in silence behind closed doors. Employers have rarely been held accountable for the suffering they cause. By asserting that abuse of the kafala system constitutes slavery, LAW hopes to create forward-looking accountability. The second trial in the first criminal case for slavery and the slave trade was adjourned Thursday after one defendant appeared in court without a lawyer and the other did not appear.

Like thousands of other migrant domestic workers harassed by their employers in Lebanon, Rogie decided not to file a criminal complaint for her abduction, but rather to file civil lawsuits with the support of the Philippine embassy to recover the documents her employer had seized and recover unpaid wages.