OUR CASES

Cases of Kafala Abuse in Lebanon


Glencia worked for Najla Saad for 18 years. She was undocumented for 13 of those years. She returned home to the Philippines in a coffin.

Najla Saad Leaves her Worker Undocumented for 13 Years

Abay worked for Peter Kojrian and Anny Balsanian in Beirut for three years. She alleges she had to beg and cry to get her salary, and often went 6-7 months without being paid, and even then he allegedly only paid her a month’s salary. She told her employer Anny that she wanted to return home, and Anny said she would go 15 days later. Abay says her employers refused to give her her passport.

Peter Kojrian & Anny Balsanian Don't Pay Their Employees

“I was working in the kitchen and he grabbed me. I tried to fend him off but I couldn’t…He choked me and squeezed by breast. It was very painful"

Ali Hammoud of Sidon - Repeatedly Raped His Enslaved Ethiopian Worker

Halima was a slave for Ibtissam Saade for 10 whole years – not a single phone call to her husband and three young daughters. Constant physical and verbal abuse.

Women's Rights Don't Apply to Kafala Workers for Ibtisaam Saade

Lensa reveals all about Eleanore Couture's abuse and enslavement of migrant domestic workers in order to make their dresses. This story goes far beyond dresses.

Eleanore Couture and The Abuser Family

The following is a testimony from Ednalyn Almazan, a Filipino woman who came to Lebanon in August 2014 to work for Dr. Lina Dakar Mattar, a dermatologist, and her husband Dr. Jean Maurice Mattar, an orthopedic surgeon. After two years of working for the Mattars, she asked to return home to the Philippines but her employers wouldn’t let her. She says she was not allowed any days off, and she says that she suffered physical abuse from her employer after she purchased her own ticket home. She left Lebanon in October 2017, having worked for them for over three years. To this day, she is owed $1,850.

Jean and Lina Matar, Doctors and Abusers

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