On the 24th of August 2023, FRC member, Nadine El-Dekmak presented her forthcoming paper “International standards of Migrant Domestic Workers and the Kafala System in Lebanon” during the penal “Remittances” at the Migration Conference 2023 hosted by the Faculty of law, University of Hamburg (23-26 August).
The conference's book of abstract is available in its entirety here.
Abstract:
The kafala system (sponsorship system) is the legal basis of the work relationship between the migrant domestic worker (MDW) and the employer also known as the sponsor. It is a restrictive immigration regime mixed with customary practices which ties the residency of the worker to their employer. This system has been implemented in many countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and the Middle East through a set of bureaucratic and legal procedures that regulate the relationship between the sponsor, the expatriate, and the state. Amongst these countries, Lebanon hosts over 250,000 MDWs, most of whom are women from Ethiopia, Sri Lanka, Nepal, the Philippines, and other African countries, who are recruited through private recruitment agencies to work under the sponsorship system and live under the roof of their employer.
Although domestic work is highly demanded in Lebanon, these women face daily exploitation and human rights violations as their working and living conditions are contestable. There, some workers don’t get paid, have a day off, have normal working hours, or have the freedom of movement and are unable to travel to their home country, and the majority have their identity papers confiscated by the employer or the recruitment agency. While it has been speculated that the kafala system results in labor exploitation of migrant domestic workers, research has yet to explore whether this national system contradicts migrant workers’ international standards. In other words, does the kafala system fulfil the international standards of migrant workers? In answering this research question, we will start from the hypothesis that the kafala system facilitates domestic servitude and therefore violates the human rights of the migrant worker. In order to confirm or dismiss our hypothesis, we will conduct a literature review and a comparative analysis between the Lebanese kafala system and international standards of migrant workers in mainly three areas often neglected: the right to freedom of movement, decent work, and the right to free choice of employment.
In this context, the paper will be concluded with a set of recommendations on the relevant topics.