The Lebanese Center for Human Rights (CLDH) raises concern over allegations of forced labor and unpaid wages of post December 2024 Syrian refugees in Lebanon. CLDH team members has received information from different regions in Lebanon, notably North Lebanon, of Syrian refugees working long hours on multiple jobs in return for a place to stay without a salary or a meager salary that is not enough to cover their expenses. Some refugees even reported being subjected to blackmail and threats of denunciation to the authorities in case they decide to leave and search for better jobs opportunities, or places to shelter them. This coercion traps them in situations of exploitation and abuse, while their irregular status effectively denies them access to protection. Fear of arrest prevents them from approaching police stations to file complaints, leaving perpetrators unaccountable and refugees without any meaningful access to justice. 
 

These allegations constitute serious violations of binding international and domestic legal obligations incumbent upon Lebanon. 

At the international level, Article 7 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) guarantees the right of everyone to just and favorable conditions of work, including fair remuneration. Lebanon ratified the ICESCR in 1972 and is therefore legally bound by its provisions. The alleged practices further violate Article 8 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), ratified by Lebanon in 1972, which expressly prohibits slavery, servitude, and forced or compulsory labor. 

In addition, the allegations fall squarely within the scope of ILO Forced Labor Convention, 1930 (No. 29), which Lebanon ratified in 1977. This Convention obliges States Parties to suppress and eliminate all forms of forced or compulsory labor, particularly where work is exacted under menace of penalty or through coercive means, including abuse of vulnerability and restriction of freedom of movement. 

At the domestic level, these practices constitute a direct violation of Article 8 of the Lebanese Constitution, which guarantees individual personal freedom. The use of blackmail, threats, or other coercive measures that effectively prevent workers from freely leaving or changing their employment negates any genuine freedom of choice and amounts to an unlawful deprivation of liberty. 

Moreover, the alleged conduct may give rise to criminal liability under Law No. 164 of 24 August 2011, which criminalizes trafficking in persons. Under this law, trafficking includes the recruitment, transportation, harboring, or receipt of persons through means such as coercion, threat, abuse of power, or abuse of a position of vulnerability, for the purpose of exploitation, including forced or compulsory labor. The facts alleged appear to satisfy all the elements of the offense as defined by the law. 

The CLDH stresses the urgency for immediate action to protect vulnerable communities from abuse and human rights violations and instill the rule of law. To this end the CLDH calls for: 

  • The Lebanese authorities, in particular the Ministry of Labor and the Ministry of Justice, to promptly investigate allegations of forced labor, unpaid wages, and blackmail against Syrian refugees, and to ensure that perpetrators are held accountable. 

  • To initiate legal actions against perpetrators of forced labor based on the human trafficking law 164/2011 

  • The Ministry of labor, to increase labor inspections in sectors and regions where Syrian refugees are concentrated, including in the Bekaa and North Lebanon, and to ensure compliance with minimum wage and working conditions standards regardless of workers’ legal status. 

  • The General Security and Internal Security Forces to guarantee that victims who report exploitation or abuse are not subjected to arrest, detention, or deportation, and that complaints' mechanisms are safe, confidential, and accessible. 

  • The government to ensure that Syrian refugees have effective access to legal aid, complaint mechanisms, and judicial remedies in cases of labor exploitation, forced labor, and extortion. 

  • UN agencies and international donors to strengthen protection programming for refugees and to condition support to Lebanon on measurable progress in preventing forced labor and exploitation. 

  • Recognition by UNHCR is essential to enable refugees to obtain temporary legal residency, which would release them from conditions of dependency and exploitation. Without such status, they remain trapped in vulnerability, exposed to blackmail and abuse by employers, landlords, and intermediaries who take advantage of their inability to access legal protection.