Corona frees the modern slaves from Lebanon…. making them homeless…
From modern slavery to homelessness: the tale of foreign domestic workers in Lebanon
They had faced tough times for quite a while already… For nine months, since the internal political crisis in Lebanon, and the economic crisis due to a dollar shortage, most have not received salaries. Many still lived in the homes of their exploiters, but today, with the Corona pandemic, more and more of them are becoming homeless and bare survival has become a daily battle. We are talking about tens of thousands of Ethiopian domestic workers who, as a result of the Covid-19 crisis have lost their jobs and cannot return to their home country. It is the fate of many of the 250,000+ foreign domestic workers who have been running Lebanese households for years. They cook, clean, wash the laundry, take care of children and dogs… and all this for at least 10 to 12 hours a day, six days a week… And Employers only pay between 150 to 300 USD a month. For many, there are bonuses; physical and/or sexual abuse. No, it’s not an exaggeration to name this modern slavery!
Rahel Zegeye, kanthari graduate of 2017, knows exactly what she is talking about. She came from Ethiopia like most of the domestic workers in Lebanon. An agency had made a connection, so, at the age of 19, with a suitcase in hand, she arrived at the doorstep to be inspected by her first “Madam”. This was the start of a long-lasting nightmare. Today, Rahel is a filmmaker, activist, and she is the founder of Mesewat, an organization that advocates for the rights of foreign domestic workers. Rahel is always at risk when doing her work. When she accused a doctor of negligence when a domestic worker was beaten to death almost a year ago, he had told her that she shouldn’t be surprised to be run down by a car one day. Being a friend of the family who had employed the domestic worker who was killed, the doctor clearly wanted to prevent Rahel from getting involved in this case…
Having gone through an extreme number of hardships, Rahel decided that an effective way to warn young women about the dangers of being exploited, was to make a movie about her life. Watching it, I came to know about the dreadful daily life conditions of migrant workers in the Middle East.
They live in complete dependence on their employer. Usually, it is the (already oppressed) wife of a wealthy businessman who lets out her frustration on the young women. Every week between two to four Ethiopian domestic workers are found dead. Whether they took their own lives or were ‘helped’ in some way often remains unclear. The Ethiopian and/or Lebanese authorities show no interest to investigate. Many young women escape and choose a life of prostitution rather than being humiliated further.
Who are these women? Usually they are the poorest of the poor, who are lured to the Middle East with supposedly secure job prospects. Signing up is easy… However, without education and without language skills, they are fully at the mercy of modern “slave drivers”. They become practically lawless, labor laws do not apply to them, because they fall under the so called Kafala system, a system in which employers become “sponsors” (kafeel).
The Kafeel determines whether the domestic worker is allowed to leave the house, the job or even the country.
In most cases it is the lady of the house who has full control over the passport, money and the life and health of the domestic worker. Rahel said: “Sometimes, when my Madam’s mood was unbearable again, I had to get by without food for days. Eventually, the hunger gripped me. There was a piece of chocolate in the fridge, I took it and I remember my hands shaking. But before I could even take a bite, out of nowhere she appeared behind me. She screamed at me and punched me in the face. To escape further beatings, I had to lock myself in my room. Later, I found out that my Madam had pushed my predecessor from the balcony in a furious rage. She died of internal injuries and my Madam was blacklisted. Nevertheless, she still managed to get me, because the registration paper to be the “Kafeel” was now signed by her husband. He wasn’t there often, but when he was in the house, he was sexually harassing me. And when he wasn’t there and I was alone with the children, they beat me. I didn’t have my own room at the time. I slept in a bed behind the bathroom. After three months I was able to escape, but it didn’t make life any easier!”
The screenplay of the movie was written by Rahel, she directed it and even played the main character. The story shows her odyssey of how she went from family to family, of daily torture, rape, homelessness and of the rare occasion in which she got a “normal” employment contract and was treated like a human being for the first time. When Rahel was at kanthari, she gave me a private screening. She described the scenes to me and translated the Arabic dialogues. Sometimes she fell completely silent. At these times, we paused the film for a moment and waited for her to compose herself again.
A well-known Lebanese actress played her “Madame”. The following is part of a scene of how another domestic worker, Azebe was treated by Madame… “Azebe, where are you, crazy woman?! Come on, stupid thing! Where are you? Make tea for me… come on, come on, come on… look at the dust! How long has is been here? One day? Two days? One Year? Bring the towel and clean it! Also make my tea! oh, why am I just so bad at this? Yes of course! Because these animals work for me! Bring me the cream! No! not the face cream, the body cream. Stupid, just stupid! …” The scene ends with the Madam pouring the freshly boiled tea into Azebe’s face.
Rahel recounted the disturbing shooting. The actress who played the Madame was so good that Rahel did not really have to ‘act’.
Today, along with her many other activities, Rahel works for an Armenian lawyer who visited Kerala to hear her kanthari TALKS dream speech.
After the speeches in which the participants combine their life story with the planned social initiative, there is always a ten-minute Q&A exchange with a panel of experts. In Racel’s case, this Q&A session was particularly impressive, because suddenly Bedros, her 80-year-old employer, took to the stage and together they left the audience speechless.
Those who still believed that it was only a film and that scenes might have been exaggerated, quickly realized through Bedro’s comments that in real life, in many cases it was even worse. In fact, Rahel was rather downplaying when she described her own fate. “She doesn’t live for herself, she’s humble,” said Bedros, “every dollar she earns from me is put into Mesewat and is used for emergency care. In doing so, she helps the women who, like she did a long time ago, run away from their sponsors and tormentors in order to get themselves to safety.”
Today, however, Rahel is stranded in Ethiopia. Ten days before the global travel ban, she had been visiting her family. But now she got stuck. She still coordinates emergency relief activities from Mesewat.
“I belong to Lebanon! Many domestic migrant workers and their children are starving, they are on the street or sharing a small room with 10 to 12 other women. Eleven domestic workers have taken their own lives in the last few weeks.”
The Covid Pandemic came on top of an already simmering internal crisis.
The society seems to be at the edge of what is bearable, and no one knows how Lebanon will change after all this over.
Factbox: ‘THEIR HOUSE IS MY PRISON’ EXPLOITATION OF MIGRANT DOMESTIC WORKERS IN LEBANON – by Amnesty International 2019
Lebanon, with a population of around six million,1 is home to over 250,000 migrant domestic workers, who come from African and Asian countries including Ethiopia, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Ghana.2 The vast majority of migrant domestic workers are women. According to the Ministry of Labour, a total of 186,429 women migrant domestic workers held new or renewed work permits issued to them by the ministry as of November 2018, broken down by nationality in the table below.3 These figures do not account, however, for the thousands of undocumented migrant domestic workers who lack work permits.