Most of Lebanon’s migrant domestic workers are from Ethiopia. There are about 145,000 Ethiopian women registered as migrant workers in Lebanon, though advocacy groups believe many more are there illegally. Since a financial crisis sparked by a shortage of dollars and mass anti-government protests last year in the country of 6.8 million people, one of the world’s most heavily indebted states, campaigners say that work has been hard to come by.
Even before that crisis, Ethiopian domestic workers earned only about $200 a month in Lebanon. It is unclear how many have been laid off, but Samuel Tesfaye, a case worker for the Lebanese migrant support group Anti-Racism Movement, said many were not getting paid at all.Ethiopians who had been planning to leave the country after losing work are now stuck, with borders closed until at least April 26 as part of a month-long coronavirus lockdown, Samuel said.
Many also face the challenge of trying to get their passports back – Lebanon’s kafala, or sponsorship, system, allows employers to keep workers’ documents and prevent them from leaving the house or changing jobs without permission. Ethiopia’s foreign ministry said its embassy was organising food distributions by the diaspora community in Lebanon while it assessed the risks of the outbreak.
Before the coronavirus epidemic, Lebanon had eased overstay penalties for migrant workers facing deportation at the request of their embassies, said Nabil Hannoun, spokesman for Lebanon’s General Security Directorate. But workers’ rights groups said the Ethiopian consulate had been unresponsive, leaving them to deal with domestic workers who have faced abuse and exploitation.
Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation
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