The ill-treatment of detained migrant women domestic workers continues and so do cases of suicide

The CLDH (Centre Libanais des Droits Humains) condemned in a statement published on its Facebook page the poor conditions of detention of more than 30 migrant women domestic workers at the Palace of Justice in Jdeideh.  The statement follows the onsite visit carried out by a delegation of the organisation in order to observe their living conditions.  The statement noted that each six women share a room of no more than 6 square meters which does not receive any sunlight.  Furthermore, detained women are not allowed to go out and cannot have fresh drinking water or food except what their friends send them.  The statement added that in case of illness, no health care service is provided except after the authorization of the police station that arrested them, while pointing out that according to regulations the migrant workers may not be detained for more than 4 days whereas many have been kept there for more than a month with no monitoring or judicial follow-up.  
Following the visit to the detention center, the organisation contacted the district attorney as well as the Ministry of Interior so that they intervene immediately in these cases of arbitrary detentions noting that this is another example of the ways in which the state deals poorly with detainees in general and with women migrant domestic workers in particular.
And in a related vein, the An Nahar newspaper reported that an Ethiopian domestic workers named Biscoff Kassawat committed suicide in her employers' home n Choueifat.  The autopsy revealed that she was six months pregnant whereas her employers asserted that she was only working for them since three months adding that she treated the children well and never showed any sign of being suicidal.
Source: L’Orient Le Jour 13 June 2013