Gifty Asante, 25, Ghanaian, describes her life in Lebanon as “a slavery life”. It is widely documented that many recruitment agents in Lebanon are physically abusive people-traffickers who do not care about domestic workers’ rights and welfare. Joudy Abou Sabha, owner of ‘Joudy Services’, is such an agent. 

Gifty arrived in Lebanon on 13 August 2019. She left exactly one year later. For the first 10 months, her agent Joudy moved her from employer to employer, house to house. Gifty alleges that she worked in about 15 houses. When we asked her why Joudy kept moving her she said that she didn’t know why - Joudy would call the employer to return her and back to the office she would go. She described how she was often subjected to physical abuse at the office: “She [Joudy] beat and step into my stomach, spit on my face, strike scissors on me.” Joudy continued to move Gifty around from household to household until she fell sick. Joudy refused to get her medical treatment, instead throwing her out of the office without her passport or personal possessions. This was when Gifty contacted This Is Lebanon: