Imagine you lived in a remote village in Nepal, spoke a tribal language and didn’t know the national language well, and your eldest daughter had gone to Lebanon over a decade ago and hadn’t returned or sent money for several years.

This was the situation of Gaj Bahadur Moktan whose daughter, Salmo Maya Muktan, left Nepal on 27 August 2010 at the age of 20 to work for Mr Farouk Ismail Khoder and his wife Mrs Asadghik. They have an adult son and their known address is Baabda, Rihanie, Arayssi Building.

In her first 2 years, Salmo was able to send money home - about $3700. After that, all payments stopped. She continually asked for her salary as she went to Lebanon to support her parents and 5 younger siblings, but was met only with false promises.

In 2015, Salmo’s father contacted the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Kathmandu who notified the Nepalese consulate in Beirut of her situation. He also recently contacted This Is Lebanon. This Is Lebanon ascertained that the consulate had Salmo removed from the Khoder home and she has been in a Caritas shelter since 19 June, along with another Nepali worker, Sajita, also owed a decade’s salary.

Instead of paying at least part of the huge salary debt he owes to Salmo, Mr Khoder engaged a lawyer, Mr Samir Haidar, to represent him. Domestic workers are commonly deported from the Caritas shelter without their salaries, their cases being referred to a labyrinthine judicial system where cases drag on for years, the workers are unable to present their own testimonies, and justice is usually denied. One such case is that of Halima, whose salary was unpaid for a decade, and who was enslaved by a Lebanese politician, Ibtissam Saade. Halima returned to the Philippines in 2017 and four years later has not received any payment. Unpaid salary cases of a decade or more are not uncommon, the longest This Is Lebanon case being a Filipino who was enslaved for 21 years. 

This is Lebanon contacted Mr Haidar, citing the case of Sajita, whom they helped to rescue from her enslavers. This Is Lebanon went on to state that Salmo and her family are willing to negotiate a settlement which can include an installment plan. They requested that he ask his client to present a proposal for them to consider.

This Is Lebanon discovered that Mrs Asedik Fyounijar, who was Salmo’s official sponsor, died on 30 May 2019, leaving her husband, Mr Khoder with an open court case with huge debts due to a breach of trust, and a lawsuit against their company, Walco, who deal in car paint. 

Mr Haidar claimed that his client intended to pay his debt to Salmo by trying to sell an apartment in his deceased wife’s name, but he also made many false accusations. He misrepresented his client’s age (he is 77, not “in his 80s”). He asserted that Salmo’s passport had not been withheld (it had), that her father was a drunkard (he isn’t), that Salmo had not asked for her salary (she had), that there are ongoing negotiations with the Consulate (there are not) and that Salmo was treated like a daughter (far from it).

Finally he accused This Is Lebanon of slander and defamation of character and threatened legal action against them. Salmo’s $18,000 salary remains unpaid.

UPDATE: After This Is Lebanon posted Salmo's story, she received the following payments: $4000 in mid December 2021 and $5,000 on 11 May 2022.