“When you are at home in Ghana, you have sex with your husband, but when you are in Lebanon, your body is for your Mister.” 

This is the claim refuted repeatedly by Angela when she worked as a domestic maid in the house of Milad Massoud. She tried to explain that she wouldn’t have sex with him, her boss, because she was married. 

Sex outside marriage is culturally unacceptable in Ghana, she explained, and she intended to be ‘a good girl.’ 

It’s different here in Lebanon, Massoud pressured her, but Angela remained adamant. Finally, after four months of sexual harassment, she used her phone to record several conversations with Massoud. Using these recordings as evidence, she confronted the family and requested to be transferred to another house. They said they would take her to the agency, but instead, they took her to a hospital intending that she should undergo a vaginal examination which they would then offer as proof that no intercourse had taken place. She refused to undress. 

Angela later spent six months with a new employer who verbally abused her, addressing her as “dog”.

Angela is now safely back in Ghana, but some of her salary remains unpaid. Furthermore, she had to buy her own flight ticket and pay $150 for a Covid test. Some might say she made it home safely, but she had to fight through horrors to get there.