A migrant domestic worker detained one week in place of her employer!

This case perfectly demonstrates the ignominy of the law that regulates the stay of migrant domestic workers in Lebanon and the injustice they are subjected to.

Placed eight years ago by a specialized agency in a Lebanese family to work as a domestic worker, the employee quickly noticed that her unscrupulous agency and employer had not regularized her legal status with the Lebanese authorities.

In spite of this situation, she continued her work at her employer’s with no way to regularize her status in Lebanon herself, since the Lebanese law strictly provides that it is the employers’ duty.

For eight years, she was deprived of her rights, prohibited from circulating freely in Lebanon or even from taking any vacation since she would be immediately arrested at airport for “illegal stay” in the country!

While she never broke the Lebanese law, while the placement agency and the employers are fully responsible of this situation, the domestic worker was detained for one week at the General Security underground detention center. The reason: an investigation into her illegal stay in Lebanon.

Her employers and the responsible agency, the only offenders, were left free and unpunished after being heard by the General Security.

In Lebanon, slave traders are not punished, their victims are!