©Simba Russeau
In December the Nepalese Department of Foreign Employment issued a ban on restricting its nationals from traveling to Lebanon as domestic workers due to the alarming rise in the number of suicides by domestic workers in Lebanon.
In response, Ziad Baroud, Lebanon’s Minister of Interior, informed the ambassadors of the Philippines, Ethiopia and Sri Lanka that his ministry plans to relocate the General Security’s Adlieh prisons, which is currently situated under a traffic bridge, to a location more respective of human rights, as well as providing thorough investigations into the deaths of workers and that the right of foreign maids to access courts will be guaranteed.
Dipendra Upetry, a leader of the Nepalese migrant community gave Migrant Voices his perspective into the recent ban and deaths.
I am a simple migrant worker who works as a cook in a hotel in Beirut, bringing home just enough to pay my rent and buy food for the imprisoned workers with what I have left over. I am the Chief Advisor for the Non-Resident Nepali Association-Lebanon and I work on a voluntary basis for the Honorary Consulate of Nepal in Beirut. Every day from 9:00am to 2:00pm you will find me down at the General Security offices and the prisons advocating for the rights of Nepalese workers. With the help of God, I find the strength to keep fighting for these workers’ human dignity and human rights.
I doubt that the ban will halt Nepalese workers from traveling to Lebanon illegally. It is very easy for them to cross the unregulated border into India and then travel to the Middle East. Every day Nepalese women looking for domestic work come to Lebanon from India. If the Nepalese government is to address the immigration issue of citizens coming to Lebanon, they first need to address the issue of workers traveling to India.
The problem of employers abusing migrant domestic workers will always be present in Lebanon, it makes no difference whether Nepal bans its workers from coming.
One of the main reasons is that the Lebanese recruiting agencies and the Lebanese employers like to hire Nepalese domestic workers because they know that their contracts will not be scrutinized or contested by the Embassy or Consulate. Also it’s easy to bring Nepalese women here under false promises and illegal contracts. The Lebanese government, earlier this year, approved the new Standard Unified Contract, but still many agencies are using older illegal contracts that don’t list any of the workers approved rights.
One of the reasons for the rise in suicides, I think, is that many of the recruiting agencies give the workers false expectations and when the reality of what life is like here sets in, these women feel lied to and trapped with no way of escape. Most of the complaints I receive from Nepalese women here is non-payment or delayed payment of their wages, forced confinement, no days off, working 17 or more hours a day, verbal, physical and sexual abuse.
From my experience, only about 35% of the Nepalese migrant domestic workers are treated properly. In most cases, women have died trying to escape abusive conditions by jumping from one high balcony to another. The police quickly rule it as a suicide and investigations are often inadequate, usually taking into consideration only the employer’s side of the story. They often fail to interview any of the neighbors or the worker’s family to see what the real story was. Because the Nepalese domestic workers, and all migrant domestic workers for that matter, are viewed as inferior beings.
