Keeping your job in the time of coronavirus, when you come from a poor country and work as a domestic worker in a country that is in a situation of profound economic crisis and social tensions is a difficult undertaking. This is how many Ethiopian women lost their housing and wages due to the pandemic and found themselves having to live on the street after being pushed out, without being paid, by the families they were working for.
They came to the land of cedars to find work, were left empty-handed, and could no longer return home because the airport of Beirut had been closed and bureaucracy around re-entering their country was long and complex. In the worst phase of the spread of Covid-19, many of them set up camp in the Lebanese capital near the Ethiopian Embassy, as they had no means to return to their homeland. Most were between the ages of 20 and 30, but there were also many minors among them. Although they do not have passports, they still want to go back to Ethiopia despite knowing they will not be warmly welcomed, given that their families took on debt in order to send them to work abroad.