Background
A significant portion of Lebanon’s population consists of migrant domestic workers (MDWs) from East Africa and Southeast Asia. The Kafala system, which governs these workers, grants employers a high level of authority and provides little protection against exploitation and abuse—including passport confiscation, detention, racist violence, lack of medical care, repatriation, and sponsorship releases. The Kafala system's effects are evident in the widespread suicide attempts among MDWs, as reported by the UN in 2021.
In late 2017, ARM, a human-rights organization, began formalizing its casework: individualized support offered to MDWs in pursuit of their safety, well-being, and justice.
The problem
I was contracted to research the situation of migrant workers in Lebanon and evaluate ARM’s casework to address the following question:
“What are the best strategies for feminist casework in this context and beyond?”
During the initial briefing session with the caseworkers, it became clear that the organization was overwhelmed by the high volume of cases—500 in the first year alone—and the challenging context in which they worked. The team of four also had limited resources and capacity, which made it difficult to effectively address the needs of MDWs.
The informality stemming from the novelty of this work, as well as its case-by-case nature, made it difficult to work efficiently. The caseworkers wanted to understand what they were doing, how well they were doing it, and how they could improve.
With input from the team, I revised the research question and broke it down:
Can we elaborate a casework framework to improve the team’s efficiency in addressing the needs of MDWs?
- What are the main labor and human-rights violations that migrant domestic workers face?
- What strategies are currently being used to tackle these violations?
- How effective are they in achieving casework objectives?
- What are the main challenges faced?
- What does a feminist model of casework look like in this context?
Methodology
Participatory, iterative research design
To ensure inclusivity and relevance, I consulted with caseworkers regularly and incorporated their feedback into the framework both as I was developing it and during the final drafts.
For example, before conducting any evaluative research, I conducted a focus group ideation session to understand what "success" meant to various stakeholders. We came up with a rubric for success based on the effectiveness of the casework in achieving the MDW's goals, taking into account internal and external constraints. It became clear that a quantitative analysis would not be sufficient. I needed to interview the MDWs themselves.
In-depth feedback interviews
I conducted open-ended discussions with each caseworker and walked through every step of their strategies to understand their experience, reasoning, and frustrations. In addition to analyzing quantitative case data, I felt it was important to gather feedback from the beneficiaries of the casework.
I requested to expand the research scope, and conducted 30 further interviews, sampling participants 50/50 from successful and failed cases, along with some ongoing cases to serve as a control group. This allowed me to gauge different stakeholders' understandings of “success” and conduct more human-centered evaluations.
Literature review
To establish the context and constraints surrounding casework, I reviewed critical literature on the Kafala system, ILO and UN reports, and news on abuse and violations. This allowed me to quickly gain knowledge about key stakeholders that were inaccessible due to research limitations.
Benchmarking
To gain an objective understanding of "feminist casework" and identify best practices for the team, I examined and compared the practices and approaches of similar organizations working locally and globally.
Ethnography
Working from ARM’s office—which was housed at the Migrant Community Center—exposed me to the lived experience of diverse stakeholders. This helped me gain a better understanding of the community's shape, shared values, struggles, and solidarities.
Structuring unstructured data
I cleaned and coded 430 case entries from an Excel sheet to identify patterns. Next, I used ATLAS.ti to quantify and characterize labor and human-rights violations addressed from 2017–2019. I also performed an intersectional analysis based on gender and nationality.
Journey maps
Using interviews, internal resources, and input from caseworkers on how they dealt with documented cases, I developed journey maps to identify pain-points, limitations, and opportunities.
These maps were later abstracted into strategic outlines based on case type (e.g. medical issue, confiscated passport, violence) that helped visualize processes for onboarding.
Insights
Due to the sensitivity of the data, I will only share publicly accessible information and provide a brief overview of the research outcomes.
⚠️ Pain point 1: Despite the variety of issues faced by MDWs, the underlying thread is access to resources.
⚠️ Pain point 2: As casework centers around MDW's needs and decisions, a major constraint is from the MDWs themselves.
They often have restricted access to information, and may face confinement, language barriers, and social exclusion.
Casework can internalize this constraint by empowering MDWs to make informed decisions and supporting them to take action.
Since casework is ultimately working towards the objectives of the MDW, I proposed a MDW-focused framework called collaborative casework.In collaborative casework, both parties agree to act in their best ability in the best interest of the case, in an explicit contract of mutual trust, understanding, and responsibility.
The approach is guided by feminist principles of inclusion, cooperation, and solidarity and aims to provide case leaders with access to structures that give them greater control over their lives and offer the potential for redress.
⚠️ Pain point 3: Caseworkers had difficulty referring to the people they serve.
They avoided loaded terms like “beneficiary,” “client,” “case,” and “victim” which convey passivity, hierarchy, transactional relationships, and powerlessness.
Building on the collaborative casework framework, I proposed that the team use the term case leader to refer to the person whose goals the caseworker is supporting. Case leader concretely defines the person as a self-determining agent who seeks support, sets goals, makes informed decisions, and takes action with the support of the caseworker. It emphasizes the cooperative relationship between the leader and worker. I presented this framework and terminology to the casework team and community leaders, and discussed its limitations. We concluded that "caseleader" is not an objective description of the MW's situation but rather what both parties strive towards through the casework relationship.
By identifying those pain points and conducting a social network analysis, I was able to map casework as a process that shifts the position of the MDW from a state of restricted agency within the oppressive structures of the Kafala system, to an empowering network of support, resources, and justice.
The framework of collaborative casework tackles multiple constraints:
- Encourages the involvement of community to address overbearing external constraints.
- Human-centered, defining its goals through the MDW and empowering them to act through networks of support, resources, and information.
- Introduced the language of caseleader to recognize and work towards that relationship.
Impact
“This year, we were able to conduct an internal study on our casework impact and feminist casework strategies where 430 case reports were analyzed. This resulted in improved internal casework systems and provided key insights that fed into our advocacy activities, particularly when it comes to recognizing the limits to what any form of casework assistance can achieve under the Kafala system.” (ARM Annual Report 2019)
- The guidebook made onboarding scalable for the casework team and beyond.
- Strategic steps helped guide and improve casework processes.
- Language of case-leadership was adopted widely by organization and community.
- I identified an opportunity for a social enterprise and developed a pitch for it. I then presented this pitch at a startup incubator organized by Bloom and the International Labour Organization (ILO), and later created the UX for a social enterprise app: CleanerCoop: supporting the livelihoods of migrant domestic workers in Lebanon
Reflections
If I could repeat this research with more time and resources, I would:
- Publish guidebooks that are publicly accessible to amplify the impact of the research and contribute to positive change beyond its immediate scope.
- Implement evaluation to be an ongoing process through the use of a case management system (CMS) and use the feed of new data to dynamically develop the strategy over time. Improvement could be not measured initially because it was the first-ever evaluation of casework and was conducted within a short timeframe.
- This is now clearer, especially considering that only three months later, Lebanon would face a sequence of crises—including popular protests, an economic crisis, the pandemic, the Beirut port explosion—all of which would severely impact the already dire living conditions of MDW. These crises added a whole new set of challenges for caseworkers to work through.