In support of migrant workers, we have decided to relaunch the 24/7 campaign in 2011 in order to celebrate Labor Day in Lebanon by demanding migrant workers’ right to good working conditions, starting with the minimal right for at least one day off a week.
The Lebanese Government approved in 2009 a unified contract for all migrant domestic workers in Lebanon, in addition, several Human Rights agreements, which are signed by Lebanon, and the Lebanese constitution supposedly protect human being in Lebanon from slavery and slavery like conditions. So far this has not prevented employers of migrant domestic workers from treating their employees as slaves.
Perhaps the most significant example would be the fact that these employees work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They are given a few hours of sleep, but even then they are on stand-by as employers reserve the right to wake them at any moment of the night for any reason imaginable.
Our aim is to alter the servant stereotype, established between an Asian/African person and a Lebanese person. We want to show a more creative, powerful, proud, self-reliant, and intelligent face to migrant workers, as business women and representative of rich and sophisticated cultures.
For more information on the campaign please contact Simba Russeau at: 24sevencampaign@gmail.com, Janie Shen at: janie.shen@gmail.com or Nisreen Kaj at: nisreen.kaj@gmail.com
In Azuniyeh, Lebanon there’s a hospital for migrant women who are diagnosed with tuberculosis. Most of these women were dumped at the hospital by their employers and left without pay. The employers give the women’s passports to the agencies where they were hired and the agencies used those passports to contract the women to other potential Lebanese sponsors.
