This bleak image is the daily reality of countless migrant domestic workers in Lebanon, who are estimated to be between 250,000 and 300,000 in a country of around 5-6 million people. More recently, the arrival in Addis Abeba of seven corpses from Lebanon, documented by Zecharias Zelalem for Addis Standard, once again highlighted the dangerous nature of working conditions for migrant domestic workers in Lebanon.
The lives of women like Lediya Bekele, Woinshet Nigusseie and Mekedes Gadisa and girls like Agere Mandefrot (who was only 16 when she started working in Lebanon), four of the seven documented by Zelalem, rarely get press coverage in Lebanon. With the exception of occasional print coverage and rare TV interventions in the form of investigations, migrant domestic workers in Lebanon are commonly rendered invisible. Even Nigusseie, who died on October 31st at Beirut’s Rafic Hariri International Airport prior to boarding to return to Ethiopia after suffering in Lebanon, received no coverage in the Lebanese press.