Lebanon’s Multiple Crises Also Expose the Racist Kafala System

In a video posted on Facebook, six activists took it upon themselves to explain the “Kafala” system in six languages: English, Swahili, Akan, Somali, French, and Kinyarwanda. It is, they argue, “an exploitative sponsorship system found in the Middle East whereby the employer has full control over their employees.” The Kafala system, from Arabic for “sponsorship,” dominates the lives of migrant workers in Lebanon, Jordan, and the Gulf.

With the recent economic crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic that accelerated Lebanon’s downward turn into a long-term crisis, and the more recent Beirut explosion, migrant domestic workers have been forced into positions of extreme vulnerability.

At the time of writing, a number of migrant domestic workers are attempting to leave Lebanon through their embassies or consulates—many of whom no longer have access to their passports as they have been withheld by their employers.

Furthermore, groups such as “This is Lebanon”–a migrant activist collective that came to prominence for publishing the info of Lebanese abusers on its social media—is now campaigning for the evacuation of workers under the hashtag #SendUsHome.

English | September 1, 2020

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