Challenges
In Lebanon there is a lack of legal and societal preparedness to respect and protect the rights of female migrant workers and refugees and to cater for their needs. Women migrant workers do not enjoy standard labour conditions, and suffer from social and institutional discriminations. National and international tools to protect female migrant workers are still insufficient.

Labour migration

What we found

• Women move to Lebanon to improve their life conditions. In relation to the migrant domestic workers, the migrant women show agency in their decision to migrate, motivated by a strong desire to change their lives. The choice of Lebanon as a destination is, to a great extent, pre-determined by the market of the recruitment agencies under the kafala system.
• Economic factors strongly influence migration. The main, self-reported driver for leaving home is that of finding either their first employment or a new one with a higher income. Poverty and restricted life prospects can be considered the main drivers of migration for migrant domestic workers. Being able to make, send and save money is a source of empowerment and pride, which appears to set a reassuring temporal limit to their stay in Lebanon, while also making their life conditions there more acceptable.
• Most women viewed their stay in Lebanon as temporary. The women are at a stage where they perceive their experience in Lebanon as temporary, as is typical of circular migration. Due to this, they do not seem to be on any pathways to integration in Lebanon. Many declared that they do not go to public spaces, have no social life and attend no social event, whereas they spend their little free time on their phone, watching television and talking to their families back home. The use of technology as a virtual place of freedom and empowerment emerges as an important phenomenon requiring further investigation.
• Agency, empowerment, and hope play key roles in women’s experiences with migration and marginalisation. The coping strategies of the four undocumented Syrian women, which includes two refugee transwomen, consist in the choices, actions, and narratives that can mitigate the hardships of their situations as undocumented migrants – for example, being able to make, save and send money to their family gives them a sense of empowerment. Plans for future migration endeavours are also signs of an orientation towards change. Further, one NGO practitioner provides a reading of hope when suggesting that the growing number of MDWs falling out of the exploitative kafala system might be the start of a bottom-up, freelancers-based alternative system to the kafala. 
• Support-seeking remains challenging for women in migration contexts, particularly women who face intersecting forms of marginalisation. The case of the two refugee transwomen is important when looking at the dynamics of support-seeking. The support of the third sector is not considered very helpful by the participants. Nonetheless, seeking support is an important action of self-protection and coping with difficulties. The experiences of these women disclose also questions around the reputation of Lebanon as a country of freedom in contrast with a country where discrimination against different types of minority groups is instead widespread.
• Lebanon’s triple crisis (the economy, the Beirut port explosion, and Covid-19) has a disproportionate effect on migrant women. The NGO practitioners describe the impact of the triple crises on migrant domestic workers, as well as on undocumented migrants from Syria, as far more significant and devastating than the migrant women describe, who mainly suffer from increased isolation and reduced income. Echoing what has been mentioned above, the practitioners describe a scenario where the women are fired, not paid, and abandoned in front of their embassies. Many want to return home, face increased discrimination, hostility and sexual violence.
• Covid-19 has led to increases in gender-based violence. Looking at the wider migrant population, including the even more vulnerable undocumented migrant workers, the NGOs’ participants indicate that gender-based violence and the violation of sexual and reproductive health rights has considerably increased, whereas in-person support has become impossible.