October 20, 2026
The 2026 US State Department report on human trafficking in Lebanon revealed the continued exploitation of migrant domestic workers and Syrian refugees, recording cases of recruitment through fake job offers, deprivation of freedom of movement, and forcing some migrants to work in illegal activities, in addition to the increasing risks of Syrian children being exploited for begging and forced labor.
The report explained that employers and recruitment agencies recruit female workers from South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East and West African countries, and after their arrival in Lebanon, some of them are subjected to confiscation of their passports, deprivation of their wages, and forcing them to work long hours without days of rest, in addition to restricting their movement and subjecting them to physical or sexual abuse. Recruitment offices continue to recruit female workers, especially from Nigeria, the Philippines, and Ethiopia, while confiscating passports – which is a major indicator of human trafficking – does not face any law that criminalizes or punishes it in Lebanon.
In the digital context, the report monitored fraudulent methods targeting migrants through WhatsApp groups and Facebook pages through fake job offers or promises of resettlement, amounting to impersonating international organizations. In some cases, migrants are lured into domestic work and then forced to package drugs into networks that combine human trafficking and smuggling.
The vulnerability of migrants is exacerbated by the attempts of some intermediaries to exploit their desire to regularize their legal status by extorting money and documents from them, while the visa system linked to the employer contributes to increasing the worker’s dependence on the recruiting party, which complicates the authorities’ ability to monitor violations. The report also pointed out the high risk of sexual exploitation as a result of the economic crisis, and the luring of Syrian women and girls with false promises of work, exposing them to violence and forced abortion.
Regarding Syrian refugees, whose number was estimated at about 900,000 people, the report indicated that restrictions on their work and the application of residency laws make them more vulnerable to trafficking and forced labor, especially in the sectors of agriculture, construction, street selling, and begging. Crime networks exploit families’ need for food and shelter to involve adults and children in forced labor or exorbitant debts, in addition to forcing some children to carry out criminal activities, and exposing women and girls to sexual exploitation or early marriage under the pressure of poverty.
In terms of prosecutions, the Lebanese government reported investigating 6 human trafficking cases, prosecuting 14 suspects, and convicting 13 traffickers during the year 2025 (12 for sexual exploitation and one for forced labor), compared to 3 investigations and 73 prosecutions without convictions in 2024, with 20 prosecutions from previous years remaining under consideration.
The report recorded positive government steps, including adopting unified procedures to identify and refer victims, increasing the members of the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit in the Internal Security Forces from 20 to 25 members, tightening licensing conditions and financial guarantees for recruitment offices, and closing 20 offices. However, the report pointed out that the unit is still limited in number, and that adult victims rely heavily on associations to provide shelter and care.
The report kept Lebanon in the second category, considering that the government has made progress in some aspects, but it lacks a comprehensive national plan to combat human trafficking and a joint government mechanism, criticizing the continued arrests and deportations in some cases, the absence of criminalizing the confiscation of passports, and the persistence of the visa system linked to the employer as a loophole that keeps migrants and refugees vulnerable to exploitation.
