Every year on 30 July, the world marks the World Day Against Trafficking in Persons, reaffirming the international community's commitment to preventing trafficking, protecting victims, and holding perpetrators accountable. 

This year’s commemoration comes at a critical moment for Lebanon, where economic collapse, repeated humanitarian emergencies, and escalating hostilities have created the conditions in which trafficking, forced labor, and exploitation can expand. Shrinking humanitarian funding and limited access to protection services have further reduced victims’ and survivors’ ability to seek assistance, justice, and rehabilitation. 

For many years, the Lebanese Center for Human Rights (CLDH) has documented how these intersecting crises have deepened exploitation affecting migrant domestic workers, refugees, women, and children. Although Lebanon adopted Law No. 164/2011 to combat trafficking in persons, shortcomings in its implementation continue to limit its effectiveness in protecting victims and ensuring perpetrators are held accountable, thereby perpetuating impunity. 

Trafficking in Lebanon: Structural vulnerabilities that facilitate exploitation 

Human trafficking does not occur in isolation. It thrives where discrimination, poverty, displacement, weak labor protections, and inadequate access to justice intersect. 

CLDH’s documentation shows two groups facing especially acute and recurring risks: migrant domestic workers and Syrian refugees. 

Migrant domestic workers 

Migrant domestic workers remain among the groups most exposed to trafficking in Lebanon due to the continued existence of the kafala system, which ties workers' legal residency to their employers and excludes them from the protections of the Lebanese Labor Law. 

CLDH's report Safe from Slavery: Uncovering the Reality of Migrant Workers in Lebanon (2023) documented widespread indicators of trafficking and forced labor, including passport confiscation, deception regarding employment conditions, excessive working hours, confinement, restrictions on communication with family members, non-payment of wages, physical and psychological abuse, and inadequate living conditions. 

Workers attempting to escape abusive employers often face impossible choices. Many flee without identity documents, placing them in an irregular legal situation that exposes them to arrest, detention, retaliatory accusations of theft, or renewed exploitation by trafficking networks. CLDH has further documented systemic barriers to justice, including limited access to legal assistance, the absence of interpreters during investigations, discriminatory treatment in detention, and inadequate victim identification procedures. 

The escalation of hostilities during the recent conflict further exacerbated these risks. CLDH's report Left Behind: Systemic Discrimination Against Migrant Workers During the Israeli War on Lebanon (2026) documented numerous cases in which migrant workers were abandoned by employers without wages or documentation, excluded from collective shelters, left without access to humanitarian assistance, and, in some cases, remained in detention after completing their sentences because no safe repatriation options were available. These conditions significantly increased the risk of trafficking, forced labor, and further exploitation. 

Syrian refugees 

Syrian refugees remain particularly exposed to trafficking because restrictive residency policies, poverty, repeated displacement, and limited livelihood opportunities increase dependence on informal and exploitative work. 

CLDH has documented increasing cases of forced labor, wage theft, exploitative working conditions, and forced begging affecting both newly arrived refugees and long-term refugee populations. Children are particularly vulnerable to labor exploitation and organized begging, while fear of arrest, detention, deportation, or refoulement prevents many victims from reporting abuses or seeking protection. 

The current conflict has compounded these vulnerabilities. Many refugee families have experienced repeated displacement, loss of income, exclusion from humanitarian assistance, and significant barriers to securing safe housing, increasing their dependence on exploitative labor arrangements and informal survival strategies. 

Trafficking affects all vulnerable populations, including women and girls subjected to sexual exploitation, children, migrant workers employed outside the domestic work sector, and persons facing intersecting forms of discrimination. Effective anti-trafficking policies must therefore adopt a comprehensive, victim-centered approach that addresses the needs of all individuals at risk. 

These patterns reflect broader global trends identified by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), including the growing detection of trafficking for forced labor and the heightened exposure of migrants, refugees, and displaced persons to exploitation. This global evidence reinforces CLDH’s case that Lebanon’s response must combine victim protection with labor, migration, and justice reforms. 

 

A national legal framework exists, but implementation remains insufficient 

Lebanon adopted Law No. 164/2011 on the Punishment of the Crime of Trafficking in Persons, introducing trafficking offences into the Penal Code and criminalizing acts committed for the purpose of exploitation, including forced labor, sexual exploitation, servitude, forced begging, and practices similar to slavery. 

The law also recognizes victims' vulnerability and exempts victims from criminal liability where offences were committed as a direct consequence of their trafficking situation. 

Despite these important legal advances, implementation remains inconsistent. 

Legal Agenda’s analysis and CLDH’s legal assistance and casework show that victims continue to be misidentified as offenders, particularly migrant domestic workers and Syrian women prosecuted for prostitution or residency-related offences rather than recognized as trafficking victims. This misidentification weakens protection, discourages reporting, and prevents investigations from reaching traffickers and exploitative employers. 

Despite the existence of criminal provisions on trafficking, prosecutions remain relatively rare and victim recovery remains underdeveloped. Lebanon still lacks a comprehensive framework to ensure rehabilitation, compensation, safe accommodation, temporary residency where needed, and effective access to reparations. 

Ending trafficking therefore requires more than legislation. It requires effective implementation, adequate resources, specialized training, institutional coordination, and meaningful accountability. 

Trafficking: multiple violations of human rights and Lebanon’s international obligations 

Human trafficking is not solely a criminal offence. It constitutes a continuum of serious human rights violations affecting nearly every aspect of a victim's life. 

The lack of effective prosecution of human trafficking cases constitutes a violation of Lebanon's international obligations to protect and ensure the fundamental rights of victims, including : the rights to liberty, security, dignity, freedom from slavery and forced labor, freedom from torture and ill-treatment, access to justice, decent work, equality before the law, family life, education, health, and protection from discrimination, as recognized in numerous international conventions ratified by Lebanon, including: The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, ICCPR, ICESCR, Convention against Torture, Convention on the Rights of the Child, CEDAW, CERD, and relevant ILO Conventions, to prevent trafficking, protect victims, investigate perpetrators, and provide effective remedies and rehabilitation. 

 CLDH calls on: 

The Lebanese authorities to 

  • Ensure the effective implementation of Law No. 164/2011 and strengthen the consistent application of Article 586(8) of the Penal Code by the competent judicial authorities, protecting victims from prosecution for offences committed as a consequence of their trafficking. 

  • Include migrant domestic workers explicitly within the scope of the Lebanese Labor Law to ensure they benefit from legal protection and access to their labor rights and protections relating to working conditions. 

  • Guarantee victims’ access to legal aid, medical and psychosocial care, safe accommodation, compensation, rehabilitation, and temporary residency on protection grounds, regardless of migration status. 

  • Support specialized training programs for judges, prosecutors, law enforcement officials, labor inspectors, General Security officers, and social workers on identifying victims of trafficking, investigating trafficking offences, and responding to trafficking cases using a victim-centered and trauma-informed approach. 

  • Increase labor inspections and oversight of recruitment agencies and employers to prevent exploitation before it escalates into trafficking. 

 

International donors and humanitarian actors to: 

  • Sustain and increase funding for specialized anti-trafficking programs in line with existing needs, including legal aid, shelters, psychosocial support, child protection, and rehabilitation services. 

  • Support Lebanese institutions and civil society organizations in strengthening victim identification mechanisms, referral pathways, protection services, and specialized responses to trafficking cases. 

  • Ensure that humanitarian assistance and protection services reach all persons at risk of trafficking, regardless of nationality, residency status, or legal documentation, thereby reducing the vulnerabilities that increase the risk of exploitation.