No place for foreign workers being displaced in Lebanon

Beirut, Lebanon – Over the last 11 months, as air raids hit villages near their home, Lakmani and her mother Sonia decided to stay in their south Lebanese village of Jouaiya, about a 25-minute drive east of Tyre and a little under an hour from the southern border.

“There were some raids not far away,” Lakmani, 26, said.

“And they broke the sound barrier a few times,” her 45-year-old mother Sonia added.

Sonia came from Sri Lanka to Lebanon to work as a cleaner shortly before giving birth to Lakmani, who has lived her whole life in Lebanon and works as a private tutor.

“But then Monday bombs started falling and we said: ‘OK, we should go,’” Lakmani told Al Jazeera, sitting on a park bench in downtown Beirut, where she and her mother now sleep.

That day, September 23, would go on to become the deadliest day since the end of the country’s civil war in 1990. Israeli bombs rained down on villages in the south and the Bekaa Valley in the east of Lebanon, killing at least 550 people.

Lakmani and Sonia gathered a few belongings, mostly clothes, and fled to Tyre, thinking they would be safe there.

But after three days, the air raids around Tyre were so violent that they decided to move north to Beirut.

On Friday, September 27, the Israeli military sent evacuation orders for large parts of Beirut’s southern suburbs, creating a displacement crisis in the capital.

They, like other foreign workers in Lebanon, are now sleeping rough.

Lakmani and her mother found space in a small, grassy public garden with a few trees next to a busy street in Saifi, near Martyrs’ Square in downtown Beirut.

About 102,000 people had already been displaced in the last 11 months. Now that figure is about one million, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

A gross underestimation

The Education Ministry opened shelters for the displaced in schools around the country but limited them to displaced Lebanese citizens. Those without Lebanese nationality, and many with it, have taken refuge by Beirut’s seaside or in public spaces.

Zeinab from Sudan holds her newborn baby girl in a temporary shelter for migrants at St Joseph Church in Beirut on October 1, 2024 [Louisa Gouliamaki/Reuters]

The International Organization for Migration estimates about 176,500 migrants live in Lebanon, though the real number is thought to be much higher.

A regularly cited figure is about 200,000 but even that is a “gross underestimation”, according to experts and activists in the sector.

Many of them work as cleaners or nannies and are beholden to the country’s kafala labour system, which binds a foreign worker to a local sponsor and often results in the labourer being abused.

The recent Israeli attacks have highlighted the vulnerability of these foreign workers. Activists who specialise in working with them told Al Jazeera that the war has left them in a variety of troubling situations.

“Some of them were left behind in their [employers’] houses in targeted areas, mainly in south Lebanon or the Bekaa region and they had to find their way back to safe areas often without passports or papers,” Diala Ahwash, a Lebanese migrant rights activist, told Al Jazeera.

Others were brought to safe areas by their employers but then left on the streets, being forced to sleep rough in parks or by Beirut’s seaside. Some were taken to temporary shelters but then expelled when administrators decided to give places to Lebanese instead.

“There’s no understanding that these women have rights. [This situation] goes back to kafala and how it operates, turning migrant domestic workers into an accessory or commodity,” Salma Sakr, of the Anti-Racism Movement (ARM), told Al Jazeera. “And when you don’t need this commodity you throw it away in the street.”

“Basically the majority of migrant workers are now facing a precarious situation in varying degrees but it’s a disaster in a general sense,” Ahwash said.

There’s no place without war

As the war expanded, some embassies began extracting their citizens. The Philippines embassy repatriated its citizens without charging them.

Others are making their citizens pay, and many foreign labourers are on low wages and cannot afford expensive plane tickets home. Then there are citizens of countries that have an honorary consulate instead of an embassy in Lebanon.

Many embassies do not want to pay to repatriate their citizens, demanding that the people pay for their evacuations themselves [Courtesy of Dara Foi’Elle, Migrant Workers’ Action]

“These consulates are completely useless and some exploit workers in this situation and make them pay more,” Sakr said. “With the embassies, there’s a higher-level response.”

But, Sakr added, many embassies still require citizens to pay their way home.

In the park in Saifi, Rose, 30, sat with two of her Ethiopian compatriots. All were living in Beirut’s southern suburbs until last Friday when Israel began sending evacuation orders. Rose has been in Lebanon for 12 years. She works as a freelancer and lives in her own place with her Sudanese husband and two children.

“Everyone comes here to speak to us but what do we benefit from these interviews?” she said, her fatigue showing through. She said she could not afford to pay for evacuation but even if she could, “My husband is from Sudan and I’m from Ethiopia. There’s no place without war.”

Some nationals from countries enduring ongoing conflicts – Syria, Sudan, Ethiopia, and others – can register with UNHCR and apply for resettlement, though “the process takes years and years and serves a very small population,” Sakr said. “So it’s not really a sustainable situation.”

The Lebanese government has also been of little help, according to activists. In some cases, Lebanon’s General Security, which is responsible for border control, has levelled fines in the hundreds or thousands of dollars on workers with expired papers. Most workers make at most a few hundred dollars a month.

“As Lebanon is facing relentless, indiscriminate attacks, it is critical to keep the most vulnerable in mind,” Dara Foi’Elle, of Migrant Workers Action (MWA), an organisation that works to counter systemic exploitation of migrant workers in Lebanon, said. “A general amnesty is needed for all those undocumented workers who want to leave.”

One of the biggest issues women in the park in Saifi complained of was the lack of a private place to shower or use the toilet. “It’s harder for women than men,” said Mortada, 36, a Sudanese man who had been displaced from the south.

“If the war doesn’t end, we’ll go back home”

Back in the park in downtown Beirut, Lakmani sat with her mother. They said the park was a decent shelter but they would like a clean place to shower and use the toilet.

Many migrant workers have had to sleep on the streets as shelters refuse to take them in [Courtesy of Dara Foi’Elle, Migrant Workers’ Action]

“We’re not relaxed here but we tolerate it,” she said, cracking a smile and showing the braces on her teeth. “We’re not used to being out on the street.”

While many foreigners in Lebanon are systematically more vulnerable than Lebanese nationals, Lakmani projected strength and agency. “Not all foreigners are uneducated,” she said. “We lived a happy life.”

While not a Lebanese citizen, she has spent her life in the country. Leaving, for her, is not an option.

“We can’t go back to Sri Lanka, we don’t have anything there,” she said. “We want to wait and see. If we don’t find a solution here, we’ll go back to our village.”