A housemaid of African descent who works for a Lebanese family in the northern city of Tripoli was rejected Saturday from seven hair salons in the town, when she decided to have a new hairstyle before going back to her country.
This occurrence is not the first to happen in Lebanon. In fact, house workers have been always subject to discrimination, oppression and abuse such as their deprivation from accessing swimming pools and beaches.
The female domestic workers who originate from African states such as Sri Lanka and Ethiopia operate under “kafala”, a sponsorship system under which immigrant workers are sponsored directly by employers, with no recourse to Lebanese labor law or other state protections.
For more details, watch the full report in the video above