COVID-19, Ethiopian Maids 'Dumped' in Streets in Lebanon

The 32-year-old was left on the curb outside the Ethiopian consulate in a suburb of Beirut, one of the hundreds of women abandoned by employers without the means to get home after the pandemic hit, on top of a financial crisis that has devastated the Lebanese economy.

Lebanese labor laws offer little protection for migrant workers. The best these women can hope for is that a charity will help them get home.

“They just take them out and dump them on the streets with their belongings,” Alemtsehay told Reuters. “Even right now, there are many women on the streets, waiting for someone to come to their rescue.”

Ethiopia accounts for the biggest percentage of migrant workers in Lebanon, according to Lebanese government data. 

In May, Alemtsehay was one of around 650 women who returned to Ethiopia on a flight organized by Addis Ababa authorities and the United Nations’ International Organization for Migration (IOM).

Another woman on the flight said she had been dumped without her wages or passport and arrested for not having identification. She didn’t want Reuters to identify her for fear that traffickers that she paid to bring her to Lebanon would track her down and force her to repay her debts.

Maureen Achieng, IOM’s chief of mission in Ethiopia, said women were still keen to work in Lebanon despite the horror stories.

“The dangers are for the most part well known but ... not always a sufficient deterrent,” she told Reuters.

Alemtsehay’s family is just happy to see her.

“Thank God now she is back home, in one piece,” said her mother Workitu Metaferiya as Alemtsehay’s 6-year-old son, Christian Mikias, smiled shyly. He was 2 the last time she was home.  

Read: Migrant Workers Back Home; Jokowi Wants Tighter Covid-19 Protocol

REUTERS