From Exclusion to Resistance: Migrant Domestic Workers and the Evolution of Agency in Lebanon

ABSTRACT

In addition to hosting a large population of refugees and displaced persons, Lebanon is home to an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 migrant domestic workers. Under Lebanese law, domestic workers fall under the kafala, or sponsorship, system. Existing literature has focused on the legality of the kafala system and the ensuing human rights violations resulting from workers' exclusion from Lebanese labor law. Based on fieldwork conducted in 2016, this article argues that migrant domestic workers in Lebanon have defied their spatial, social, and legal exclusion by organizing collective resistance, triggered in part by the July 2006 Israel-Lebanon war.

KEYWORDS:

• Migration
• domestic work
• Lebanon
• resistance
• collective movement
• kafala

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Dr. Lama Kabbanji for her helpful comments on an early draft of this article and colleagues at the International Centre for Migration Policy Development for their feedback and contribution to this case study. We are also grateful to Sally Youssef and Dr. Laura Ferrero for their assistance throughout the fieldwork of this case study and to the European Union for funding this case study within the project “Migrants in Countries in Crisis: Supporting an Evidence-Based Approach for Effective and Cooperative State Action” (MICIC). We would also like to thank, the Overseas Development Institute for its Research Innovation Fund that allowed us to produce this article.

Notes

1. The respective nationalities of participants and any indication of identity have been removed to maintain their anonymity.

Additional information

Funding

The European Commission-funded project “Migrants in Countries in Crisis: Supporting an Evidence-Based Approach for Effective and Cooperative State Action” (Grant ID: DCI-MIGR/2015/355/840) provided the funding to conduct the research upon which this article has been based. The Overseas Development Institute (Grant ID: Research Innovation Fund 2016/17) provided funding for developing this publication.