Winnifred Cobblah arrived in Lebanon from Ghana on 25 March, 2019. Her story illustrates the miserable experience that many domestic workers in Lebanon go through, and the difficulty they have in accessing justice when they run into problems.

Winnifred worked for her first employer for a mere three days. The employer claimed she didn’t work hard enough, and returned her to the Lebanese employment agency without pay.

The agent was a man named Afif Boutari. He runs a recruitment agency called Lebanese for Services and General Trade, located in Aicha Bakkar Street, Beirut. Boutari allegedly has two wives, one Lebanese and one Syrian. This is an important detail, because when domestic workers are returned by their employers to his agency, he sometimes sends them to his three-storey house in the mountains where his second wife resides.

Winnifred was relegated to the house in the mountains, where she stayed for almost a month. One room is set aside for returned domestic workers, who spend their days cleaning the house, without any pay in return. This room has one bed, shared by up to seven workers. Winnifred described it as a “hell house” for a number of reasons. The workers aren’t given adequate food, with meals consisting of a cup of tea and half a piece of bread in the morning, and plain rice or pasta later.

Winnifred says that a fellow domestic worker was forced to have an abortion there. The woman in question didn’t know she was pregnant when she arrived from Ghana to work in Lebanon. She was returned to Boutari’s agency after a month. The worker was initially presented with two choices: pay the agency $3,000 to return home, or agree to an abortion. Boutari’s first wife gave the worker the pills to induce the abortion.

On 13 April 2019, Winnifred was assigned to a new employer - Nabil and Hannan Mezher in Qib Elias, in Zahle, eastern Lebanon. The Mezhers have a disabled daughter who is in her early twenties but has the intellectual capacity of a one year old. She requires constant attention, including heavy lifting and diaper changes. It was at the end of her fifth month in the house that Winnifred contacted This Is Lebanon.

In 2005, she had her appendix removed and found the heavy lifting of the Mezhers’ daughter was affecting her shoulders and stomach. The lifting was causing severe pain but she was not allowed to complain. Furthermore, her employers hadn’t paid her for five months and were denying her contact with her family.

Winnifred wrote: “Please I need a help center to report this issue.” If only such a place existed. She asked if she could terminate the contract, and we advised her that since her employers had finalised her contract, she would have to work for the two years stipulated. We could, however, write to them about the non-payment of salary. Before we had a chance to do that, Winnifred was once again returned to Boutari’s agency. When she had asked her employers for her five months’ unpaid salary, they told her she would get it from the agent, Boutari.

On 4 October, Winnifred returned to the hell house. She alleges Boutari hit her, and that she witnessed him physically abusing another Ghanaian girl. She begged him to stop, but to no avail.

On Winnifred’s behalf, we contacted Boutari. He replied on 8 October: “About her salary, the employer said for me that she has salary with him, I think for 5 months, and he is ready to pay her. No problem.”

On the 12, 14, and 15 October we followed up with Boutari trying to find out when Winifred would be paid. On 15 October, he wrote that “the girl [Winnifred] decided to change employers and we will help her.” On 2 November, Winnifred went to work for her third employer.

On 7 November, Boutari wrote again in response to our messages: “Winnifred changed the employer and we are waiting for her to try for 15 days. After that we will do everything for the papers for immigration. About the money, we are waiting for the old employer to send me the money to give her soon but now he told me cannot to send because there is some problem in the bank. He is waiting to solve the problem and he will get the money and he will give me. After that, I will give it to Winnifred.”

On 11 November, Winnifred’s third employer returned her to the agency after paying her $60 for the nine days’ work.

A week later, on 18 November, Winnifred went to work for her fourth employer, an old woman also in Qib Elias. Her employer didn’t want her to have more than two meals a day, so Winnifred would eat at midday and be given only fruit in the evening. Famed Lebanese hospitality did not apply to her. There were four empty beds in the house, but Winnifred was made to sleep on an old mattress on the floor. The mattress was from the deceased husband’s bed. The employer constantly looked over Winnifred’s shoulder, complaining about her work and insulting her.

On 1 January, 2020, Winnifred ran away from her employer’s house. Unwilling to return to her abusive agent, she took a taxi to General Security who directed her to the police. At the police station she was told the employer’s son had already filed a complaint against her for running away. They told her to return to the employer’s house but she refused. Winnifred says that they then told her: “Go where you want.”

We contacted the agent Boutari on 8 January: “Rami Mezher said they paid you Winnifred’s $1000 salary. Please confirm.” He replied: “Not yet, but I need from the girl $3150. She should send it to me.” In response to our question about how she was supposed to pay when she had been working for 10 months for almost no salary, he replied: