Only 1 in 5 OFWs in Lebanon is treated well
Roughly, only one in every five Filipino domestic helpers in Lebanon is lucky enough to be spared from physical, verbal, sexual and other forms of abuses, according to an ex-worker from Lebanon who has been involved in a migrants advocacy group.
“The unlucky ones are locked up inside their employers’ house for years and are made to work for long hours," said Ma. Socorro dela Cruz, a domestic helper for almost four years in Lebanon.
Dela Cruz has joined the Kapisanan ng mga Kamag-anak ng mga Migranteng Manggagawang Pilipino,Inc. (KAKAMMPI), a group attending to the needs of distressed workers overseas.
In a recent reunion of Filipinos who used to work in Lebanon, only 15 out of 75 former domestic helpers said they got fair treatment from their employers and did not experience physical, verbal, sexual and other forms of abuses, Dela Cruz said on Thursday.
She said most of her Filipino friends in Lebanon shared their ordeal in the hands of their employers. “Only a few shared happy stories while we were in a refuge center there," she recalled.
Inside the houses of their masters and unseen by the community, domestic helpers face all forms of abuses, she added.
According to her, most Lebanese employers confiscate passports of helpers. They look at and treat helpers as the lowest forms of slaves. They feed their “slaves" with leftovers, prohibit them from having friends and from using the phone.
“It takes years to gain the trust of Lebanese employers," she said. Employers withhold salaries of helpers for months, even for a year for fear the worker will flee if they have money.
Filipinos in Lebanon are estimated at 30,000.
Sister Amelia Torres of the Daughters of Charity, directress of the Afro-Asian Migration Center in Lebanon, said it is difficult to determine the exact number of Filipino domestic helpers in Lebanon, partly because many are undocumented.“Despite the travel ban to Lebanon, I see young Filipino women coming into the country. They come in by groups of eight or twelve,"
Sr. Torres said in an interview aired on radio recently.
Cases of abuses alarming
A wire agency reported earlier this week that domestic workers in Lebanon often face abuses. The report cited a story of a domestic helper from Sri Lanka who was locked up and cut off from her family for nine years, without even a penny for the endless household chores she had to do.
Quoting a press report, the article said that foreign domestics number about 150,000 in the country of four million.It added that although many employers treated their household helpers kindly, stories of abuse abound.
It also said that human rights organizations in Lebanon have begun sounding the alarm over reports of rape and exploitation against domestics.This year four of these domestics have reportedly committed suicide, the report said.
"Everyday I receive calls and text messages about sexual harassment," the report quoted Father Augustine, a Filipino priest, as saying."Many employers refuse to pay the workers for months. Some beat the maid to keep her obedient," said the priest, who works closely with Caritas.
"The girls that you see out in church on Sundays are the lucky ones," he added. "The majority tend to be locked up at home, not even allowed to use the telephone."You cannot really tell who is abusing their maids, they could be Christian or Muslim, educated, respectable looking, hard to tell," he said.
Shelters at the Filipino and Sri Lankan embassies accommodate dozens of women who have run away from abusive employers. Hundreds of others, who have fled their employers or remain in the country illegally, are kept in a deportation center waiting to retrieve their passports, the priest added.
The victims of severe abuse are kept in a Caritas "safe house" in an undisclosed location in cooperation with Lebanese authorities.Nonetheless many incidents go unreported as employers threaten the victims with deportation or withholding their wages.
Better off Filipinos get better pay and treatment compared to Indonesians or Sri Lankans, Dela Cruz said. “To have a Filipino house helper is a status symbol among Lebanese employers. So, Pinays are paid higher, but this doesn’t mean they are safe from abuses," Dela Cruz. The average monthly salary is $200-300 for Filipinas and $100-150 for Sri Lankan and Ethiopians. Employment agencies in Lebanon charge an average of $2,000 to import the workers and commit them to a tightly binding two-year contract. - Luis Gorgonio, GMANews.TV
“The unlucky ones are locked up inside their employers’ house for years and are made to work for long hours," said Ma. Socorro dela Cruz, a domestic helper for almost four years in Lebanon.
Dela Cruz has joined the Kapisanan ng mga Kamag-anak ng mga Migranteng Manggagawang Pilipino,Inc. (KAKAMMPI), a group attending to the needs of distressed workers overseas.
In a recent reunion of Filipinos who used to work in Lebanon, only 15 out of 75 former domestic helpers said they got fair treatment from their employers and did not experience physical, verbal, sexual and other forms of abuses, Dela Cruz said on Thursday.
She said most of her Filipino friends in Lebanon shared their ordeal in the hands of their employers. “Only a few shared happy stories while we were in a refuge center there," she recalled.
Inside the houses of their masters and unseen by the community, domestic helpers face all forms of abuses, she added.
According to her, most Lebanese employers confiscate passports of helpers. They look at and treat helpers as the lowest forms of slaves. They feed their “slaves" with leftovers, prohibit them from having friends and from using the phone.
“It takes years to gain the trust of Lebanese employers," she said. Employers withhold salaries of helpers for months, even for a year for fear the worker will flee if they have money.
Filipinos in Lebanon are estimated at 30,000.
Sister Amelia Torres of the Daughters of Charity, directress of the Afro-Asian Migration Center in Lebanon, said it is difficult to determine the exact number of Filipino domestic helpers in Lebanon, partly because many are undocumented.“Despite the travel ban to Lebanon, I see young Filipino women coming into the country. They come in by groups of eight or twelve,"
Sr. Torres said in an interview aired on radio recently.
Cases of abuses alarming
A wire agency reported earlier this week that domestic workers in Lebanon often face abuses. The report cited a story of a domestic helper from Sri Lanka who was locked up and cut off from her family for nine years, without even a penny for the endless household chores she had to do.
Quoting a press report, the article said that foreign domestics number about 150,000 in the country of four million.It added that although many employers treated their household helpers kindly, stories of abuse abound.
It also said that human rights organizations in Lebanon have begun sounding the alarm over reports of rape and exploitation against domestics.This year four of these domestics have reportedly committed suicide, the report said.
"Everyday I receive calls and text messages about sexual harassment," the report quoted Father Augustine, a Filipino priest, as saying."Many employers refuse to pay the workers for months. Some beat the maid to keep her obedient," said the priest, who works closely with Caritas.
"The girls that you see out in church on Sundays are the lucky ones," he added. "The majority tend to be locked up at home, not even allowed to use the telephone."You cannot really tell who is abusing their maids, they could be Christian or Muslim, educated, respectable looking, hard to tell," he said.
Shelters at the Filipino and Sri Lankan embassies accommodate dozens of women who have run away from abusive employers. Hundreds of others, who have fled their employers or remain in the country illegally, are kept in a deportation center waiting to retrieve their passports, the priest added.
The victims of severe abuse are kept in a Caritas "safe house" in an undisclosed location in cooperation with Lebanese authorities.Nonetheless many incidents go unreported as employers threaten the victims with deportation or withholding their wages.
Better off Filipinos get better pay and treatment compared to Indonesians or Sri Lankans, Dela Cruz said. “To have a Filipino house helper is a status symbol among Lebanese employers. So, Pinays are paid higher, but this doesn’t mean they are safe from abuses," Dela Cruz. The average monthly salary is $200-300 for Filipinas and $100-150 for Sri Lankan and Ethiopians. Employment agencies in Lebanon charge an average of $2,000 to import the workers and commit them to a tightly binding two-year contract. - Luis Gorgonio, GMANews.TV
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