INTRODUCTION FROM PUBLICATION:

“Families in Lebanon have a long history of hiring domestic help to undertake the culturally gendered responsibilities of cleaning, cooking, and caring for children and the elderly. Over time, the profile of the domestic worker in Lebanon has changed. Whereas in the past, families engaged women and girls from lower socio-economic strata within the region, they are increasingly reliant on a transnational workforce of migrant domestic workers (MDWs), primarily from Asia and Africa. The common thread tying these workers together is their vulnerability to exploitation in the employment relationship. The vulnerability stems from a variety of factors including precarious working conditions, low social status, long-standing gender inequalities and cultural devaluations of care-based work. At present, there are over 250,000 MDWs working in private households in Lebanon. As labour migration to the region has exploded, an industry of private labour recruiters has emerged to match migrant workers with employers in Lebanon and facilitate the workers’ movement across borders. While using the services of a private recruitment agency is not mandatory in Lebanon, most families choose this option because of the complexity of the immigration procedures and the added assurances of having a mediator and guarantor in case of problems. Overall, the legal and policy framework covering the basic human and labour rights of MDWs in Lebanon is not in line with ILO Domestic Workers Convention, 2011 (No. 189) and other relevant standards including those linked to Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work.1 While the government has formed a national steering committee on domestic work and discussed various draft policies covering MDWs, none has passed into law. In the meantime, domestic workers remain excluded from most laws and policies covering national workers, including the right to Freedom of Association. In this legal penumbra, MDWs and employers rely heavily on the legally binding contract of Employment (“the contract”) that sets out their rights and obligations. The contract has 18 provisions outlining rights such as full salary payments each month with receipts, and restrictions on the maximum number of work hours per day. It does not address fundamental issues such as passport retention and freedom of movement. Employers also use a collection of customary practices known as kafala to govern their treatment and employment of MDWs. While kafala is not a law per se, its popular use means it has gathered the strength of a de facto law. Kafala is engrained in state policies in most Arab countries; the word kafala in Arabic means sponsorship, but it also connotes protection. In this system, a migrant worker’s residency and work permit is tied to a specific employer. Kafala inhibits MDWs from seeking legal recourse through national labour laws and therefore seriously compromises their ability to leave exploitative or abusive working conditions. As such, kafala has received ample attention in the media and by international and local organizations that fight for the protection of the rights of migrant workers. Indeed, the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation (LBC) regularly reports on cases of abuse against MDWs, including those with tragic outcomes. One report covered the suicide of an MDW from Bangladesh, who has not been allowed to leave the employer’s home since the beginning of her employment a year and two months prior to the suicide incident. The employer ignored the victim’s requests to return to Bangladesh. LBC’s analysis of this particular suicide drew a tight connection between kafala and the predicament MDWs encounter when they cannot extricate themselves from exploitative employment relationships. Though kafala is the structure that governs the hiring of migrant workers, employers and recruitment agencies contribute to de ning this structure with their own practices. Especially where financial interests are at stake, employers and private recruitment agencies may collude to maintain a power structure with MDWs at the bottom. A recent ILO study entitled “For a Fee: The business of recruiting Bangladeshi women for domestic work in Jordan and Lebanon” examines the business model of private recruitment agencies and the in uence of national laws, policies and regulations on how private employment agencies conduct their business.  The findings of that study have been triangulated with the present study to provide a stronger analysis in relevant areas. Despite numerous studies and writings on MDWs in Lebanon, little attention has been given to the role of employers in the employment relationship. While there are studies that examine the subject of employer practices and perceptions in Lebanon through a critical lens, one commissioned by KAFA in 2010 and another conducted by Insan Association in 2014,5-6 both are based on relatively small and convenient samples. To fill this gap, the International Labour Organization (ILO) collaborated with the American University of Beirut to conduct a mixed- methods study of employers of migrant domestic workers. KAFA (enough) Violence & Exploitation and Anti-Slavery International provided valuable support throughout the study. Specifically, the study examines the recruitment, working and living conditions of migrant domestic workers through the lens of a triadic relationship between the system (kafala and the written law), employers (agents) and recruitment agencies. There are four parts to the report. The first part provides an overview of employers’ socio-economic composition and other relevant demographics along with a cursory overview of their domestic workers. It goes on to elaborate on employers’ household needs and their corresponding preferences for domestic workers on key topics such as the form of employment (full-time, part-time) and domestic worker nationality and attributes. Part two examines employer views on the transnational recruitment of domestic workers, including selection of labour recruiters and the payment of recruitment fees. Part three provides an overview and analysis on knowledge and practice of employers vis-a-vis MDW rights; this includes payment of wages, provision of rest days, working time, freedom to leave the home unaccompanied, and retention of identity documents. Part four outlines a series of conclusions and recommendations. The recommendations are aimed first and foremost at the Government of Lebanon to uphold the basic human and labour rights of all workers, but also at employers, who as key agents of change, can take action to promote decent work for domestic workers in principle and practice. The researchers used a two-phase approach to generate findings for the report: first, to inform the design of a survey questionnaire, researchers carried out in-depth interviews with 29 employers of live-in MDWs; second, a quantitative survey, based on a representative sample of 1,200 Lebanese employers of live-in MDWs was carried out in Greater Beirut, Jounie and Jbeil, and Saida. Appendix A includes a detailed description of the study methodology; other methodology documents are attached in appendices B and C.”