The Kafala System: A Replica of Lebanon's Violent Sectarian System?

Abstract

Although the relation between the sectarian system and the kafala system is not always made, this study will allow us to understand how the violence of the kafala system against women replicates that of the sectarian system. The main research question guiding this study is the following: how does the violence of the kafala system against female MDWs mirror the violence of the sectarian system against women? A number of other questions consequently emerge. These include: how is Lebanon’s sectarian system discriminatory against women through personal status laws? How is the kafala system responsible for exacerbating the gender divide in terms of migrant domestic work? This research uses the single case study method, and it involves Filipino MDWs in Lebanon. It will be done by examining the legal infrastructure of the violence of the kafala system. Additionally, the gender imbalance in domestic work amplifies this violence against women. The study will mainly refer to secondary sources from credible and relevant institutions such as the International Labor Organization, Amnesty International, and other human rights organizations. It will also involve secondary sources from legal documents and official publications from governmental institutions. This paper analyzes the violence of the kafala system via aspects of food inaccessibility, barriers to communication and movement, physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, and suicide. It also compared the structural violence Lebanese women and MDWs face by analyzing the case of citizenship and gender discrimination. The paper was successful in proving the hypothesis, but it also deduced that not all Lebanese women fight for MDW rights since the former tend to be abused by their husbands; women MDWs become scapegoats.