Some 250,000 migrant domestic workers - most from sub-Saharan African countries such as Ethiopia and Ghana, and southeast Asian countries including Nepal and the Philippines - reside in Lebanon. General Security had said in 2017 that two domestic workers die every week in Lebanon.
Domestic workers in Lebanon are legally bound to their employers through the country's notorious kafala system, which only allows them to end their contracts with the consent of employers.
The system has led to widespread abuse, ranging from the withholding of wages, to physical and sexual assault. Camille Abousleiman, Lebanon's former labour minister, has called it "modern-day slavery".
Diala Haidar, a Lebanon campaigner at Amnesty International, told Al Jazeera, "The Lebanese labour law explicitly excludes domestic workers from labour protections enjoyed by other workers such as minimum wage, overtime pay, compensation for unfair dismissal, and social security. The labour law needs to be amended to recognise domestic workers as workers and grant them full labour protections."
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