• Cease detention of potential trafficking victims during victim recognition procedures and ensure victims and potential victims are expeditiously referred to appropriate shelter and services.
• Train officials on use of established SOPs for proactive identification of trafficking victims among vulnerable populations, including migrants, women holding artiste visas, domestic workers, and Syrian refugees.
• Increase efforts to investigate and prosecute trafficking crimes, including domestic servitude, and seek adequate penalties for convicted traffickers – including complicit officials, employers, and recruitment agents.
• Significantly increase efforts to ensure trafficking victims are not inappropriately penalized solely for unlawful acts they committed as a direct result of being trafficked, such as immigration or prostitution violations.
• Reform the employer-based visa system to ensure all foreign workers, including domestic workers, are not bound to abusive employers, and allow workers full freedom of movement.
• Increase efforts to train judges, prosecutors, law enforcement officials, and diplomatic personnel on trafficking and application of the anti-trafficking law.
• Screen all domestic workers in detention centers for trafficking indicators and refer victims to care.
• Switch artiste visa holders to temporary work visas that ensure full labor protections and freedom of movement.
• Grant temporary residency permits for trafficking victims and allow victims to work.
• Develop and enforce strong regulations and oversight of labor recruitment agencies and hold fraudulent labor recruiters criminally accountable.
• Continue to partner with NGOs to screen for, identify, and provide protection services for all victims.
• Increase efforts to raise public awareness of trafficking, including exploitation of migrant domestic workers.
• Formally establish the victim assistance fund.
• Adopt and implement an updated comprehensive NAP and dedicate resources to its implementation.
• Improve the judiciary’s capacity to collect, compile, and track data and outcomes of trafficking cases from all courts.

The government decreased anti-trafficking law enforcement efforts. The 2011 anti-trafficking law criminalized sex trafficking and labor trafficking and prescribed penalties of five to seven years’ imprisonment and fines if the offense involved an adult victim and 10 to 12 years’ imprisonment and fines for those involving a child victim. These penalties were sufficiently stringent and, with respect to sex trafficking, commensurate with those prescribed for other grave crimes, such as rape. A draft anti-trafficking law amendment to resolve burden of proof and other issues remained pending with parliament, which met only periodically during the reporting period to discuss ”emergency” agenda items, due to Lebanon’s two-year presidential vacancy, until the election of a president in January 2025 and formation of a new government in February 2025.

Financial, economic, and political crises continued to affect law enforcement’s ability to investigate trafficking cases and compile data. Most public-sector workers only reported to workplaces intermittently in protest of salary interruptions, limiting the government’s ability to undertake effective anti-trafficking efforts and respond to information requests. Most law enforcement and judiciary offices did not have basic supplies, including electricity or fuel for vehicles or generators. Due to these constraints, reported statistics generally declined and may include non-trafficking crimes such as drug trafficking and be incomplete, limiting the scope of comparison.

The Internal Security Forces (ISF) anti-trafficking unit was the lead law enforcement unit investigating trafficking cases and the Directorate General for Security (DGS) led investigations among some categories, including foreign workers and cases involving artiste visas – a temporary visa program for dancers and female entertainers. ISF reported investigating 61 total cases and determined three cases involving three suspects were human trafficking. DGS reported investigating 712 cases of “illegal residency” but determined none were trafficking cases. This was a decrease compared with the total 94 ISF and DGS human trafficking investigations initiated in 2023.

MOJ did not have a centralized data collection system to report data on prosecutions and convictions and did not report comprehensive data during the reporting period. In 2024, the government initiated prosecutions of 73 trafficking suspects but did not provide further details; an additional 95 prosecutions remained ongoing from previous reporting periods but these may have included other crimes, such as drug trafficking. The government reported all 73 trafficking suspects were in pre-trial detention. For comparison, in 2023, the government initiated 135 new prosecutions but most of those prosecutions may have involved migrant smuggling without elements of human trafficking. Courts did not report convicting any traffickers, compared with two convictions in 2023. Despite domestic servitude being a prevalent form of trafficking in Lebanon, the government has never reported convicting a trafficker for such exploitation under the 2011 anti-trafficking law and has not reported prosecuting a domestic servitude case since 2015. The government did not report any investigations, prosecutions, or convictions of government employees complicit in human trafficking crimes.

The ISF anti-trafficking unit remained understaffed and underfunded with only 20 officers and no field offices outside Beirut, which limited the unit’s work. Overlap between the anti-trafficking unit’s commander and officers with the ISF’s moral protection unit, functionally limited the ISF’s prioritization of trafficking cases. Government officials and NGOs continued to report some judges lacked understanding of the anti-trafficking law and knowledge of best practices for handling trafficking cases. Officials generally sought to resolve trafficking cases involving foreign workers through mediation between the employer and worker rather than referring them for criminal prosecution. Government officials continued to report security forces were reluctant to arrest parents for subjecting their children to trafficking, usually in forced begging, because of a lack of social services available should the child be removed from the family. The government relied on NGOs and international organizations to provide anti-trafficking training to officials, though the government organized several roundtables or workshops, with support from NGOs and international organizations, that included sessions on trafficking during the reporting period.

The government made mixed victim protection efforts.

In 2024, the government reported identifying 64 potential victims but did not report how many were officially recognized as trafficking victims. The government acknowledged these cases included victims of other crimes without trafficking indicators. In comparison, the government identified 49 potential victims in 2023 and 148 in 2022. NGOs reported the government referred 33 victims and potential victims to NGOs for assistance. NGOs and international organizations reported assisting 224 trafficking victims in 2024, including the 33 victims referred by the government.

In January 2025, the government approved standard victim identification procedures – drafted in previous reporting periods in coordination with international organizations – through an “exceptional” executive decision between the outgoing caretaker prime minister and newly elected president. The government took steps to implement the new procedures by drafting terms of reference for the new coordination structure established in the procedures and planning workshops to train stakeholders at the end of the reporting period. Before implementation of the procedures, officials continued to identify and refer trafficking victims to care on an ad hoc basis using disparate existing procedures. For example, DGS used an SOP for identifying and referring trafficking victims during investigations of commercial sex cases and managing cases in the DGS detention center.

The Ministry of Social Affairs (MOSA) reported providing medical, psycho-social, legal, and other services to child trafficking victims; however, the government did not report how many child victims it identified and assisted during the reporting period. The government did not directly provide protection services to adult trafficking victims, nor funding for services for adult victims, but it partnered with NGOs. NGO-run victim care facilities in Lebanon were dedicated only to female and child trafficking victims; there were no services available or government resources dedicated to male trafficking victims, even though forced labor of men in construction reportedly continued. NGOs instead generally referred male foreign national victims to their embassy or consulate for accommodations. The government continued implementing a longstanding MOU with an NGO whereby DGS referred female victims to NGO-run safe houses, but the government did not allow victims to work while receiving assistance at the safe house and the NGO could not accommodate child sex trafficking victims because of a lack of funding for specialized psycho-social assistance. Victim services were not time-limited or conditional upon victims’ cooperation with law enforcement. MOSA continued to coordinate and fund the provision of protection services to child trafficking victims through contractual agreements with NGOs. Foreign embassies that provided shelter to nationals when NGO shelters were full reported providing accommodations to an increased number of their nationals, including domestic servitude victims, because of the economic crisis and hostilities with Israel. For the sixth consecutive year, the government did not establish the victim assistance fund authorized in the 2014 anti-trafficking law, despite previously coordinating with an international organization to develop an implementation decree.

The government continued to arrest, detain, and deport unidentified victims for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of being trafficked, such as domestic workers who fled abusive employers, undocumented migrant workers, Syrian refugees, women holding artiste visas, and persons in commercial sex. The government routinely detained potential trafficking victims until a judge could determine whether they would be granted victim status; it was unclear if victims were held in a separate facility or with individuals detained for crimes. The government reported provisions of the new victim identification procedures would address this issue. An international organization reported officials often detained potential trafficking victims alongside traffickers during law enforcement operations and prosecutions. If a judge did not grant a victim formal status, including foreign workers without residency or work permits, officials released them from detention or charged them with the commission of a crime. Judicial officials often lacked understanding of trafficking, and an international organization reported the failure to proactively identify trafficking victims during law enforcement operations increased the likelihood victims were penalized for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of being trafficked. NGOs reported some foreign victims, including domestic workers, sometimes chose not to file complaints or retracted testimony because of fear of reprisal or deportation.

Under the employer-based visa system, foreign workers who left their place of employment without permission from their employer – including trafficking victims leaving exploitative working conditions – forfeited their legal status, risking arrest, detention, and deportation and increased their vulnerability to further exploitation. DGS continued using administrative procedures for employers to inform DGS about domestic workers who left the workplace, which improved upon prior procedures that automatically launched prosecutions of migrant workers who left their workplace in response to an employer complaint. Authorities could subject foreign workers, including trafficking victims, without valid residence and work permits to detention for one to two months – or longer in some instances – followed by deportation. Authorities could immediately deport women holding artiste visas upon arrest for alleged prostitution violations, including those committed as a direct result of being trafficked. DGS continued to operate a 750-person detention center where authorities detained foreign domestic workers for violating the terms of their work contracts or visas. As in past years, DGS allowed an NGO to operate a permanent office inside the detention center with unhindered access to detainees to provide legal and psycho-social services. DGS also continued to permit the NGO to interview detainees to identify trafficking victims among the detention center population; the NGO reported identifying 381 potential trafficking victims in coordination with DGS in the detention center.

The government relied on NGOs and international organizations to provide legal assistance to victims; an NGO reported providing legal assistance to 238 trafficking victims. Through a partnership with an international organization and foreign donor, the government maintained child-friendly spaces in six courts across the country for child victims participating in court proceedings. However, the law did not allow for victims’ identities to be kept confidential during court proceedings, nor could victims testify privately, in writing, or via video increasing the likelihood of re-traumatization during court proceedings. Victims could file civil suits to obtain compensation, but the government did not report whether courts awarded any compensation to victims. Judges could allow foreign victims to reside in Lebanon during an investigation, but the government did not report if any judges issued such a decision. The government did not assist in the voluntary repatriation of trafficking victims during the reporting period; an international organization reported assisting in the voluntary repatriation of 392 trafficking victims without government support. The government did not provide temporary or permanent residency status or other relief from deportation for foreign trafficking victims who faced retribution or hardship in the countries to which they would be deported.

The government maintained inadequate prevention efforts. An inter-ministerial working group convened during the year to identify anti-trafficking priorities, but escalating hostilities between Israel and Hizballah in September 2024 halted coordination on developing a NAP. The government provided in-kind support to international organization-led awareness campaigns. DGS and the Ministry of Labor (MOL) continued to operate hotlines to receive reports of abuse and migrant worker complaints, including suspected trafficking crimes, and MOSA operated a hotline for children at risk of exploitation, including potential trafficking victims. The MOL hotline received 39 complaints resulting in the inclusion of 10 employers on MOL’s blacklist; the government did not report if calls resulted in investigations or identified victims. An NGO reported ISF and DGS frequently referred potential victims to the NGO’s hotline.

DGS continued a program to inform artiste visa holders about restrictions and obligations of their visa status upon arrival to Beirut Rafik Hariri International Airport. Under the program, if the visa holder objected to the visa’s terms, they were free to return to their home country at the expense of the visa holder’s sponsor. NGOs reported the conditions of the artiste visa were inherently exploitative and facilitated sex trafficking; despite commercial sex being illegal in Lebanon, artiste visa holders’ sponsors frequently coerced them to perform commercial sex acts to pay their debts. DGS regulations for the visa program also required regular screening for sexually transmitted infections and pregnancy tests, implying an expectation artiste visa holders engage in sexual activity despite extreme restrictions on their movement. DGS continued implementing amended policies for the artiste visa, ensuring artiste visa holders were not confined to their hotel rooms and easing requirements to allow artiste visa holders to request to change employers. However, the artiste visa holder still had to appear in person at DGS with her current employer to request a change in employer. Under a prior directive from DGS, airport officers continued to return passports directly to foreign domestic workers upon their arrival in Lebanon, but NGOs reported many employers confiscated workers’ passports in private. The government did not have a law that prohibited or penalized confiscation of workers’ passports or travel documents by employers or labor agents, weakening deterrence of the practice and increasing foreign workers’ vulnerability to trafficking.

Lebanon’s labor law excluded both Lebanese and foreign national domestic workers, denying them a minimum wage, limits on working hours, and other labor protections. Lebanon’s employer-based visa system continued to prevent foreign workers from switching employers without notarized employer approval or receiving adequate access to legal recourse in response to abuse, increasing foreign workers’ vulnerability to trafficking.

During the escalation of hostilities between Israel and Hizballah in September-November 2024, MOL exempted migrant workers from having to obtain documents from employers to allow them to return to their home country. In addition, MOL and DGS temporarily waived work permit requirements to allow migrant workers to apply for residency permits; this waiver ended in January 2025. A 2015 ministerial decree prohibited recruitment agencies from requesting or receiving any worker-paid recruitment fees, but the government acknowledged numerous unregistered recruitment agencies operated illegally and charged migrant workers recruitment fees. MOL did not report investigating, suspending, closing, or taking any enforcement actions against any recruitment agencies for labor violations or complaints of mistreating migrant domestic workers. MOL placed 10 employers on its blacklist of recruitment agencies and employers that had committed fraudulent recruitment practices in 2024; however, owners of blacklisted recruitment agencies reportedly opened new agencies registered under the names of new partners. The government did not report prosecuting any recruitment or employment agencies for potential trafficking crimes. Labor inspectors did not conduct routine inspections of worksites, and the government did not report training labor inspectors on identifying trafficking crimes or reporting any potential trafficking crimes to law enforcement. The government did not take steps to reduce the demand for commercial sex acts.

Trafficking affects all communities. This section summarizes government and civil society reporting on the nature and scope of trafficking over the past five years. Human traffickers exploit domestic and foreign victims in Lebanon, and traffickers exploit victims from Lebanon abroad. NGOs reported the combined impact of economic and financial crises, political instability, and escalation of hostilities between Israel and Hizballah increased the vulnerability of Lebanese nationals to trafficking. NGOs and international organizations report the exploitation of Lebanese adults – particularly in industries such as custodial services – by Lebanese nationals; similar to migrant workers previously filling the same jobs, employers subject these Lebanese workers to abuses indicative of labor trafficking, such as nonpayment of wages, poor working conditions, and excessive hours. Media reported traffickers use social media applications to recruit and exploit Lebanese and foreign children in sex trafficking.

Traffickers exploit women and girls from South and Southeast Asia and an increasing number from East and West Africa in domestic servitude in Lebanon. According to an NGO, more than 250,000 migrant domestic workers were in Lebanon in 2023. Despite the ongoing economic crisis, NGOs reported recruitment agencies continue to aggressively recruit foreign domestic workers, particularly from Nigeria and the Philippines. Lebanese government officials and NGOs report most employers withhold domestic workers’ passports, and some employers also withhold workers’ wages, force them to work excessive hours without rest days, restrict their freedom of movement, and physically or sexually abuse them – all indicators of labor trafficking. NGOs report such abuse of domestic workers is typically underreported. Employers subsequently exploit or abuse many migrant workers who arrive in Lebanon through legal employment agencies, and some employment agencies recruit workers through fraudulent or false job offers. Media reports some migrant workers, and Lebanese nationals, increasingly engage in commercial sex due to lack of economic opportunity following the economic crisis further, increasing their vulnerability to trafficking. During cross-border fire between Hizballah and Israel that began in October 2023 and culminated in an expanded Israeli campaign that ended via a U.S.-brokered cessation of hostilities in November 2024, some employers in southern Lebanon abandoned migrant domestic workers at their homes to avoid violence, increasing the vulnerability of these workers to exploitation, abuse, and injury; between October and December 2024, an international organization estimated approximately 23,000 migrant workers were displaced by the conflict further increasing vulnerability to trafficking. The number of exploitation cases, including trafficking, perpetrated by foreign nationals against their own countrymen continued to increase, particularly among migrant workers. Traffickers of the same nationality as the migrant worker coerce those who have been fired or abandoned by their Lebanese employer into domestic servitude or sex trafficking.

Women, primarily from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Morocco, and Tunisia, legally enter Lebanon to work as dancers in nightclubs through Lebanon’s artiste visa program. An artiste visa is valid for three months and can be renewed once. Prior to 2023 regulation changes, the terms of the artiste visa prohibited foreign women working in these nightclubs to leave the hotel where they reside, except to work in the nightclubs that sponsor them. Nightclub owners withhold the women’s passports and wages and control their movement. Traffickers also exploit these women through physical and sexual abuse and domestic servitude. The number of migrant domestic workers and artiste visa holders entering Lebanon began to increase following previous decreases during the pandemic; the government reported 1,038 artiste visa holders entered Lebanon in 2024, compared with 921 in 2023, 480 in 2022, none in 2021, 774 in 2020, and 3,376 in 2019. The government reported approximately 12 adult nightclubs were open in Lebanon, compared with of 42 prior to the COVID pandemic and economic crisis.

The estimated 1.5 million Syrian refugees in Lebanon are at high risk of sex and labor trafficking. Restrictions on Syrians’ ability to work legally in Lebanon and the enforcement of residency permit laws increase this population’s vulnerability to trafficking. Syrians are commonly involved in the exploitation of other Syrians in Lebanon, particularly targeting refugees fleeing the conflict. For example, Syrian traffickers hold Syrian refugee adults and children in bonded labor to pay for food, shelter, and transit to or from Lebanon, and they contract out groups of refugees to work in the agricultural sector in the Beqaa Valley. Similarly, an international organization reported evidence of bonded labor in refugee communities where forced child labor is used in exchange for housing in informal tented settlements. Child labor and forced child labor among the Syrian refugee population continues to increase, particularly in agriculture, construction, and street vending and begging. These children are at high risk for labor trafficking, especially on the streets of main urban areas such as Beirut and Tripoli, as well as in the agricultural sectors of Beqaa and Akkar. International organizations previously reported the presence of children working in illegal cannabis farms in the Beqaa. NGOs report that some Syrian refugee children are forced or coerced to conduct criminal activity. In 2022, an international organization reported 65 percent of children in detention in Lebanon were Syrian and included trafficking victims detained for crimes they were forced to commit as a direct result of being trafficked, such as theft and begging. Criminal groups recruited women and girls from Syria with false promises of work and subsequently exploited them in sex trafficking in which they experienced mental, physical, and sexual abuse and forced abortions. Family members or powerful local families forced some Syrian refugee women and girls into commercial sex acts or early marriage to ease economic hardships; these women and girls are highly vulnerable to trafficking. Prior to the fall 2024 escalation in hostilities between Israel and Hizballah, Lebanese nationals fleeing the economic crisis reportedly joined Syrian refugees to migrate from north Lebanon to Cyprus, Italy, and Türkiye, and an international organization reports organized trafficking networks fraudulently offer Lebanese nationals false or misleading job opportunities. Syrians and Lebanese nationals traveling through these channels are vulnerable to sex trafficking in Türkiye. Non-state armed groups, including Hizballah, Fatah al-Islam, Jund Ansar Allah, Saraya al-Muqawama, and ISIS, recruit and use child soldiers; refugee children, particularly children residing in Palestinian refugee camps, were especially vulnerable to recruitment or use as child soldiers.