Nelly, a migrant worker from the Philippines, speaks out about conditions for migrant workers in Lebanon, sexual harassment and discrimination for International Workers’ Day 2011.
This video is part of a series of interviews conducted by the Migrant Worker Task Force.
Migrant Worker Task Force in cooperation with Unesco Club AUB and Human Rights and Peace Club invites you to watch the film Maid for Sale by Lebanese film maker Dima Al-Joundi.
The film tells the story of three Sri Lankan housemaids, Sahika, Anne-Ritta and Janika: the reasons for their coming, the reasons for their staying and in one case the return back home.
After the film, Dima Al-Joundi together with Roland Tawk, a lawyer, Father Salim a priest and Dipendra Uprety, the community leader of the Nepalese community in Beirut will talk to us about the issue of migrant domestic workers in Lebanon: Exploitation, Racism and Violence.
Date: Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Time: 7pm – 9pm
Where: Auditorium B, West Hall at the American University of Beirut in Hamra
For more information on the event
Here is an interview I did with Dima al-Joundi several years ago on her film.
This blog post originally appeared on the Huffington Post. The author has granted 24/7 permission to re-publish.
By: Dr. Pardis Mahdavi
Meskerem was living in an abandoned construction site, working odd jobs with very little pay when I met her on the streets of Dubai in 2008. Her story exemplifies the experiences of the numerous migrant men and women who make up the majority of Dubai’s work force. Meskerem’s father had passed away and left her family in high debt in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa. She decided to migrate in search of employment as a domestic worker in the Gulf, but was told by her Ministry of Labor that she could not migrate without having to undergo many months of training and would have to pay for her passage and a visa. A short time later, however, her mother met a man, an illegal recruiter, who said he could facilitate travel to Dubai at no cost and find high-income-generating work for Meskerem. Though she was weary of such an irregular means of migration, Meskerem said, “I knew it was risky, but I had no choice. I had to make money, and this was the only way to get it fast.” Meskerem was placed in the home of a family who abused her regularly. When she tried to contact her recruiter, she found out that she had migrated on a tourist visa that had expired and was working illegally. Her recruiter told her he could not help her until she repaid her debt to him. Stuck in a bad situation, abused by her employers, with nowhere to turn, Meskerem is a clear case of the force, fraud and coercion that are at the core of the definition of human trafficking. However, because she is outside the sex industry, and was not kidnapped, she may not fall into popular imaginings of “trafficked.” (more…)
In recent years, numerous international news reports have emerged recounting the grim experiences of human trafficking victims in the Middle East and across the globe. These accounts do not always involve trafficking for purposes of sexual exploitation; a good number also involve trafficking for purposes of labor exploitation. In several cases, these stories have detailed the criminal charges, prosecutions, and convictions of abusive agents, employers, and even government officials.
Some judges, meanwhile, have noted the particular vulnerability of migrant domestic workers to maltreatment. For example, in December 2009, a Lebanese court ruled in favor of a Filipina woman, Jonalin Malibagu, who sued her employer after she was beaten in broad daylight at the Philippine embassy in Beirut. Similarly, in January 2011 a court in Saudi Arabia sentenced an abusive Saudi employer to three years in jail for violating the country’s anti-trafficking decree when she battered and burned her Indonesian housemaid. Meanwhile, legal analysis and criminal proceedings related to human trafficking for purposes of labor exploitation invariably utilize international legal standards and concepts such as forced labor, servitude, and slavery.
The objective here is to analyze the link between human trafficking and migrant domestic labor in the context of Lebanon. This study seeks to explain how and why migrant domestic workers may be vulnerable to trafficking. Recent studies about migrant domestic labor in Lebanon generally have not considered this link. Rather the bulk of published research on the situation of migrant domestic workers in Lebanon tends to focus on labor exploitation independently. Very few research studies and investigations conducted in Lebanon have scrutinized this topic and drawn conclusions about the relationship between migrant domestic labor and human trafficking per se. As discussed below, trafficking is an important link to explore. Various legal and policy measures may serve to protect migrant domestic workers against exploitation and trafficking, especially since Lebanon has ratified relevant international treaties.
Click here to see the full report
Georgette, a migrant domestic worker from Benin, talks to the task force about her experience working in Lebanon and what she hopes to see change and improve in this country. Interviewed at Dora, Beirut.
In Lebanon today there are an estimated 1 million migrant workers, of which between 3 -400,000 are domestic workers. Even though they comprise nearly one-quarter of the Lebanese population, their voices and views are regularly silenced and their rights trampled upon because of their national origin, class, and race.
One-third of migrant domestic workers will never be allowed to leave the houses they work in during their time in Lebanon, more than one-third report being physically abused by their employers, and 40% are not allowed to have their own rooms.
These figures reveal that Lebanon is in breach of all international conventions of the human rights of workers. This International Workers’ Day, the Migrant Worker Task Force is refocusing the issue of workers’ rights on migrant worker rights.
