A new Kafa study on the employment of migrant domestic workers in Lebanon

Kafa Exploitation and Violence and the Legal Agenda launched yesterday a joint study entitled “Dreams for Sale: a journey of exploitation of migrant domestic workers from Nepal and Bangladesh”.  The study relies on semi structured interviews and the survey of migrant domestic workers from Nepal and Bangladesh currently in Lebanon or who had returned home.  The study also includes interviews with representatives of employment agencies as well as employers and officials who were asked about mechanisms and practices for recruiting workers from these two countries and their subsequent employment in Lebanon.
The study noted that migrant workers were duped in what concerns their conditions of work and their lives in Lebanon or were not given important information or were provided by false information by the middlemen.  The study exposed forced work subjected to migrant workers who are denied rest and weekends and whose papers were confiscated.  Other practices include forbidding them from going out alone, forcing them not to leave home, forbidding them from calling their families as well as subjecting them to physical and sexual violence.  The study notes that the sponsorship (kafala) system creates unjust relations of power amongst employers and employees.  This system has prevented workers from changing their work and employers and henceforth fleeing becomes the only way to terminate a poor work relation.
The study concludes with recommendations which would contribute to changing the mechanisms of recruitment as well as limiting exploitation of migrant workers.  These include strengthening the role of the state, exchanging bilateral agreements between Lebanon and countries of origin, strengthening control of employment agencies and limiting corruption, providing incoming migrant workers with sufficient and accurate information and holding accountable those who violate the rights of migrant workers.

Source: Al-Mustaqbal, Al-Safir, Al-Akhbar 9 September 2014