Refugees, Women and Agriculture in Lebanon

The majority of women in agriculture in Lebanon are refugees from Syria who are forced to tackle a range of challenges. They often feel trapped in jobs without security or contracts, minimal wages (including a huge gap between women and men), long working hours, lack of protection, exposure

to multiple health hazards, bad working conditions, and cyclical poverty.

Refugee agricultural workers are also denied the right to form cooperatives or join existing unions

Legal restrictions and a general atmosphere of xenophobia following the Syrian refugee crisis

impedes their ability to organise around their common issues.

Men and women refugees actively distance themselves from any form of mobilisation in cases of

exploitation, whether from the Syrian Shaweesh (Supervisor) or Lebanese landowners and

employers. 

Yet, there are cases of solidarity, whereby refugees, particularly women, look after and protect one another.” (N. Turkmani, K. Hamade, Faculty of Agriculture, Refugee Research and Policy Program, February 2020, Dynamics of Syrian refugees in Lebanon’s agriculture sector, American University of Beirut)

Furthermore, many women face harassment on their way to and from work, In the transportation

trucks, and sometimes from the shaweesh.