Luck of the Draw for Foreign Laborers in Lebanon

Breanna Fehr. April 16, 2008. 9:40 p.m. Labor Problems

In Lebanon workers foreign workers take their chances, people often have extremely different experiences. Especially between men and women, one man described how he enjoyed his work because his boss treated him as they should but he stated that when he thinks about how the women are treated it makes him want to cry. Even though women laborers are often treated harsh they still want to come to Lebanon because of the growing demand for household services.

By the late 1980’s recruiting agencies began bringing mostly female domestic workers from Sri Lanka and Ethiopia. Domestic workers pay average between $100-$250 a month and they often work up to 110 hours a week most often without any days off. One worker Amelia Cortez told about how she ran away from her boss because she treated her badly. She said that she would lock her in the house at night and watch her every move during the day and in two years she didn’t have a day off, so she had to run away.

In most Arab states labor laws don’t cover domestic workers. Since domestic workers work in the household, which is not considered a workplace, the women are not considered employees. Instead they are considered servants. Rights groups have reported widespread abuse, unpaid wages, confiscation of passports and forced confinement.

It seems that there is a difference in how foreign workers are treated based on their occupation, which also happens to be separated by sex. The men are working in factories and such doing labor while women are domestic workers. These women are coming to earn a living for them and their families. I think that since the type of work they are doing is not considered work that they can easily be discriminated against. No one should ever be forced to work two years straight without a day off as Amelia did. I think the government needs to recognize that even if domestic workers are working in a household they are still employees who deserve the same rights as any other employee in any other occupation.

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=1&article_id=91051