In Lebanon, another violent round of street protests is underway as price hikes and unemployment continue, driven by an unprecedented economic crisis that started last year. In the shadow of that crisis is the country's estimated a quarter million domestic workers, who are foreigners. They've been tossed out from jobs and are helplessly waiting for a way out. Stephanie Freid has the story.
They were promised the world but ended up in a Lebanese household. This is the story of many domestic workers in Lebanon. With a 70-year-old sponsor system still in place, domestic workers are tied to their employers with little or no basic rights. The ‘Kafala’ system is the major problem behind what we have been seeing in Beirut in the last months.
After she was fired without warning from her job as a housekeeper, the Ethiopian woman said, she was dumped at the side of the highway by her Lebanese employer.
Migrant workers are making significant sacrifices to benefit their host nations' well-being. In Canada, that includes braving the pandemic. At what point do these workers deserve the residency status they seek?
As the sun rises on a humid Sunday morning in Beirut, a handful of masked women are busy offloading huge sacks of rice and flour from the back of a rickety pickup truck.
Lebanon's kafala system provides citizens with migrant household labor, though its critics say it's more like slavery. Workers have virtually no rights and must often endure hunger, beatings and humiliation. The economic crisis could change this.
The Ministry of Labor is set to release an amended version of the Standard Unified Contract (SUC) which, in theory, intends to regulate the working relationship between migrant domestic workers and their sponsors (employers). However, the contract is only one piece of the Kafala system and, due to lack of any enforcement mechanism, it is arguably the least important piece.
Lebanon’s kafala system provides citizens with migrant household labor, though its critics say it’s more like slavery. Workers have virtually no rights and must often endure hunger, beatings and humiliation. The economic crisis could change this.Read More