The organizing efforts of Egna Legna, ‘an Ethiopian migrants group that advocates for domestic workers’ rights in Lebano’ founded by Banchi Yimer, is a perfect example of municipalism in Lebanon. Egna Legna mobilizes against the abuse and slavery like conditions of domestic workers in Lebanon as a part of the Kafala system, which ‘legally bind[s] a migrant workers immigration status to a contractual relationship to the employer’. This enshrines the ‘position of the employer as tyrant…where they can withhold salaries and inflict horrific abuses with no consequence.’
Egna Legna has created a community for migrant workers, offering legal consultations, shelters, financial assistance, design classes, as well as community events to create safe spaces for migrant workers to convene. In the aftermath of the Beirut explosion that destroyed much of the city, Egna Legna has been at the fore of organizing repatriation for Ethiopian domestic workers who were abandoned by their employers.