Migrant domestic workers celebrates women and mother’s day and African countries demand protocols to protect their workers in Lebanon

The committee of migrant domestic workers, which is affiliated to the National Federation of Trade Unions and employees in Lebanon, celebrated women and mother’s day yesterday at the UNESCO palace in collaboration with the ILO.  This activity was organized within the framework of the project entitled “Strengthening laws to protect migrant domestic workers rights” and which is funded by the European Union.  
Gemma Gusto spoke on behalf of the Committee and called for raising awareness of migrant workers and providing them with protection in addition to equality and justice.  She added that their demands are about the basic rights as in the international charter for human rights.  Emmeh Wobandalin also intervened on behalf of the workers and called on the Lebanese state to codify their profession and allow them to have democratic unions as well as abolish the sponsorship system and treat them with dignity upon arrival at the airport as well as exercising justice in cases of disease or death.  She also asked the countries of origin to organize training workshops to migrant workers in order to introduce them to bilateral agreements with Lebanon as well as regulating employment and pressure for legal protection in Lebanon.  Both speakers called on employers to define working hours, as well as recognize right to rest namely the right to annual holidays and one day off per well as well as a halt of all forms of physical, verbal and sexual violence and protect them from dangerous tasks.  The event also included speeches delivered by Frank Hagemann, ILO Deputy Regional Director, Castro Abdallah, the head of the Federation of Workers and Employees Unions in Lebanon (FENASOL), Mounir Deek, the councilor of Sejaan Azzi the Minister of Labor, who all reiterated their support to the demand of the Committee and their endorsement of the importance of the law.
In a related vein, the current Minister of Labor, Sejaan Azzi, met last week with a joint Consular delegation from African countries with which he discussed the entry of their respective migrant workers to Lebanon.  The delegation which included representatives of a number of countries, namely: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Senegal, Chad, Togo, and called for the signing of  protocols between Lebanon and sending countries as well as for registering contracts at the workers’ respective embassies and specifying their rights and responsibilities.  Azzi warned against the existing mafias in both Lebanon and countries of origin and promised to review the demands and of the Delegation.  He invited the Consuls to present their demands in a memo so that these can be duly addressed.
On the other hand, the judicial detachment of Tripoli received a complaint on March 17th lodged by an Ethiopian worker accusing a staff of an employment agency in Kusba, with rape.  The defendant was arrested along with his secretary after subjecting the plaintiff to a medical exam which revealed bruises in various parts of her body and comparing her description with that of the defendant.
Source: Al-Mustaqbal, Al-Akhbar, Al-Nahar, Al-Akhbar, Al-Safir 24 March 2014