Trafficking of Migrant Domestic Workers in Lebanon: A Legal Analysis

May 2, 2011 By

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.

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The Public and Hidden Sexualities of Filipina Women in Lebanon

May 1, 2011 By

This essay was originally published In Introducing the New Sexuality Studies (2011). 2nd edition. Steven Seidman, Nancy Fischer, and Chet Meeks eds. Routledge. http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415781268/

Filipino migrant domestic workers in Hamra. ©Simba Russeau. Beirut, Lebanon

By: Hayeon Lee

There are about 200,000 migrant women domestic workers – the majority from Sri Lanka, Ethiopia and the Philippines – in Lebanon, which has a population of about four million. Although the Philippine government officially banned citizens from coming to Lebanon following the July War in 2006, an estimated 40,000 Filipinos, mostly female domestic workers, still live and work in Lebanon. Since 1975, migrant women have gradually replaced Lebanese and other Arab women from poor backgrounds, who once made up the dominant domestic labor force (Jureidini 2009). In recent years, the human rights situation of domestic workers has been of public interest due to widespread media coverage of the abuse of these women, as this appears to have led to several suicides. However, the mechanisms of power behind these abuses are often overlooked, as are the complex ways in which Filipina women negotiate within these power structures in order to shape their lives in Lebanon.

Based on 37 interviews with Filipina women, 14 in-depth interviews with Lebanese employers, two interviews with recruitment agencies, and participant-observation mostly carried out in Beirut in 2007, this essay explores the sexuality of Filipina women. (All names have been changed for privacy.) The perceived sexuality of Filipina women – along with all the negative stereotypes – is often used as a means to control these women. Yet, I will argue that Filipina women do not surrender their sexual agency; they actively negotiate the challenges of living in an alien and sometimes hostile social environment, and this includes their sexuality. [Read more...]

Small Steps Towards Curing Tuberculosis

March 24, 2011 By

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.

One woman, who chose to remain anonymous, has a frail body, her breathing is abnormal and she is too weak to even get out of bed. She says that her former employer found out that she was ill and took her to the agency who then took her to the hospital.

“My employer gave the agency my passport and now they are giving me two weeks to recover from tuberculosis because they say I have to report to my new employer,” she says “To ensure that my new employer is unaware of my illness the agency told me that I will not be able to continue medication once the new employment begins.”

According to the World Health Organization, cases like this woman who go untreated can infect on average 10 to 15 people a year.

More than two billion people or one-third of the world’s population is infected with tuberculosis. A total of 1.7 million people died from TB in 2009 (including 380,000 people with HIV), equal to about 4,700 deaths a day. TB is a disease of poverty, affecting mostly young adults in their most productive years. The vast majority of TB deaths are in the developing world, with more than half occurring in Asia.

Image copyright: noborders (away for…