Decision to deport battered Kenyan MWDW cancelled

In a statement issued last week, the Anti-Racism Movement (ARM) asked the General Security and the Ministry of Justice to suspend a decision taken earlier on July 2 to deport a Kenyan migrant domestic worker who was beaten last June along with her national by a man found to be a military in the neighborhood of Burj Hammoud (c.f: https://bit.ly/2m1Z3J1). The statement said that the violation is not only restricted to downplaying the incident as a minor assault, but also to detaining the two MWDWs and denying them the right to appoint an attorney to prosecute the thugs and defend themselves by extraditing one of them and keeping the other in detention. The incident, the statement went on to say, constitutes a clear infringement on human rights, including the right to self-defense. Similarly, Amnesty International stated that the GS decision demonstrates the injustice practiced against MWDWs in Lebanon, demanding the presence of a lawyer at the court hearings. In turn, the General Security issued a statement in which it did not deny the deportation decision, but clarified that the Kenyan women have defied the residency regulations, adding that, one of them who has children from a Lebanese husband has been released pending her status is legally settled, while keeping the other in custody. According to Al Akhbar newspaper, the GS has withdrawn its deportation ruling on Friday, while the defendant is still under arrest for not possessing legal papers. (Al Akhbar, July 7, 8, 2018)

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Two Kenyan women subjected by a military to physical violence in Burj Hammoud