BEIRUT: Locked up and cut off from her family for nine years, without even a penny for the endless scrubbing and washing up, Siriani knew it was time to flee or, as she says, die.
Like thousands of Filipinas, Sri Lankans, Nepalese or Ethiopians, Siriani came to Beirut at the age of 20 as a house maid — a must-have in the image-conscious country.
“I put up with it praying for things to get better, but then I had enough, I had to run away or I’d die,” she said in a shelter in the Lebanese capital run by Caritas Lebanon — the Roman Catholic non-profit organisation that seeks to protect migrant workers’ rights.
Siriani, who is from Sri Lanka and did not want to give her real name for fear of retribution, has been staying in the shelter with dozens of runaway African and Asian maids, who are waiting to obtain their unpaid wages and a ticket home.
She said her employers’ teenage son took pity on her and helped her run away two months ago.
Foreign domestics number about 150,000 in the country of four million, according to press reports, and though many are treated kindly by their employers and stay with them for years, stories of abuse abound.
Human rights organisations have run alarming reports on rape and exploitation by employers, who confiscate workers’ passports to prevent them from running away.
This year four of these domestics have reportedly committed suicide.
“Everyday I receive calls and text messages about sexual harassment,” said Father Augustine, a Filipino priest sent to Beirut 10 years ago to help the now 25,000-strong Filipino community.
“Many employers refuse to pay the workers for months. Some beat the maid to keep her obedient,” said the priest, who works closely with Caritas.
“You cannot really tell who is abusing their maids, they could be Christian or Muslim, educated, respectable looking — hard to tell,” he said.
Shelters at the Filipino and Sri Lankan embassies accommodate dozens of women who have run away from abusive employers. Hundreds of others, who have fled their employers or remain in the country illegally, are kept in a deportation centre waiting to retrieve their passports, Father Augustine said.
The victims of severe abuse are kept in a Caritas “safe house” in an undisclosed location in cooperation with Lebanese authorities.
Nonetheless many incidents go unreported as employers threaten the victims with deportation or withholding their wages.
Faced with crippling poverty and conflict back home, Asian and African women have poured into Lebanon since the end of the devastating 1975-1990 civil war. Many leave behind children they will not see for years.
The average monthly salary is $200-$300 for Filipinas and $100-$150 for Sri Lankan and Ethiopians.
Employment agencies in Lebanon charge an average $2,000 to import the workers and commit them to a tightly binding two-year contract.
“The employers pay the transfer fee and feel they own the girl,” said Lina Saloumi, a Lebanese social worker and liaison officer at the Ethiopian embassy in Beirut. “Sometimes they refuse to pay her wages to make sure she is not leaving them for greener pastures.” She said Lebanon’s labour laws, which do not protect foreign workers, and employment agencies she branded as “modern day slave traders”, are equally to blame.
“The agencies should stop lying to these women before they come here,” she said, explaining that some women were under the impression they were free to leave and find work elsewhere if they were not happy with the sponsoring employer.
It is also crucial that the workers receive training and orientation in their countries before they are sent abroad, observers say.
“The girl from a remote village is put on a plane and arrives here absolutely clueless of the culture, her rights, and what is expected of her,” said Nirmala, a former maid turned Caritas social worker.
The Lebanese government is working to improve labour laws and draw up unified contracts securing the rights of workers and employers, though it is unknown when they will come into effect.—AFP
