Calls by NGOs for increased protection of domestic workers in Lebanon during the coronavirus crisis have cast a spotlight on the predicament of migrant workers across the Middle East, many of whom are highly vulnerable to the pandemic and without support.

In parts of the Levant, the Gulf states and Saudi Arabia, workers from south and south-east Asia account for a large proportion of labour forces. Closed airports, bonded labour, or other forms of unbreakable employment contracts, and little access to funds, have made it close to impossible for those who want to leave to do so.

In Lebanon, where an economic meltdown had already shattered household incomes before the coronavirus lockdown, both Amnesty International and the International Labour Organization fear many domestic workers are no longer being paid. There are concerns that, with families confined to homes, workers have been forced into more intensive and dangerous work, facing obsessive demands to clean inside homes and dangerous xenophobia on rare trips outside.

“As one of the most marginalised groups in Lebanon, the government needs to clearly warn that it will prosecute employers who exploit or abuse migrant domestic workers. It should also ensure they are granted access to healthcare during the pandemic,” said Heba Morayef, Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa regional director.

In Lebanon, the 250,000-strong migrant workforce consists primarily of domestic workers, who usually live in the homes of their employers.

In the Gulf Cooperation Countries (GCC), where foreign workers make up 90% of the population of the United Arab Emirates, 60% in Kuwait, 50% in Bahrain, and 33% in Saudi Arabia, large numbers of migrant workers are instead housed in labour camps. Many have been stood down since the coronavirus outbreak, and can neither depart for their home countries, nor leave their compounds. Social distancing is very difficult and access to advanced healthcare is often limited.

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While official coronavirus numbers in the Gulf states are relatively low compared with Iran, the region’s most seriously affected country, there are concerns that migrant camps are dangerous incubators for the virus, and are not adequately checked by authorities who give precedence to citizens and expatriate residents.

When the region’s airports eventually open, potentially by the end of Ramadan in late May, some GCC countries are expecting laid-off skilled and unskilled workers to leave in numbers if they can still afford to do so.

In the meantime, several million others face what NGOs believe to be a heightened risk and increasing uncertainty.

The coronavirus crisis has crippled employment across the Gulf and could spell ruin for construction, retail and other sectors. The upshot could threaten the very future of migrant labour in all countries – and in turn threaten the viability of some of the world’s richest economies.