Status quo

According to the statistics of the Ministry of Labor in 2011, the size of the foreign labor population in Lebanon is 184 960 workers distributed by the following nationalities:

• Egyptian: 25 912
• Ethiopian: 45 705
• Bangladeshi: 40 380
• Sri Lankan: 14 054
• Filipino: 29 141
• Indian: 7367
• Nepali: 9524

According to profession, they are distributed as follows:

• Domestic workers: 137 719 i.e. 75% of the foreign labor force
• Cleaning workers: 15 458
• Farmers: 8475
• Porters: 10 741
• Servants: 2645
• Others: 9922

Problems and crises

Security reports highlight multiple offences and crimes committed by foreign workers, especially domestic maids. The following were registered in 2010, 2011 and 2012:

• A Filipino maid, called Rivana, stabbed on the 7th of February 2010 Rose, the sister of her employer, who had arrived from Dubai a week earlier and was staying at her sister’s. While Rose was giving her 8-year old niece Marie-Rose her bath, the maid walked in and stabbed the aunt and the niece in different parts of their bodies. Rose died as soon as she and her niece arrived at the Abou Jaoude Hospital. The maid admitted to having committed the crime, claiming that she was afraid that her employer might summon a doctor home to kill her, extract her organs and donate them to Matilda. Mount Lebanon Investigative Judge Fawzi Khamiss demanded the execution of the maid for murder and referred her to the Criminal Court.
• A Filipino maid kidnapped her 6-month old employer’s son in Maamelteyn on June 15, 2010 and fled to Tripoli, where the security forces found her hiding in a parking garage with two false individual status records. Sources believed that she was planning to sell the baby for a certain amount of money.
• An Ethiopian housemaid working in Tallet Khayyat attempted suicide on July 25, 2010 by throwing herself from the 8th floor which caused her to suffer skull fracture and other injuries.
• An Ethiopian domestic worker hanged herself with an electrical wire at the Nour employment office on January 1, 2011. The reason behind her suicide was probably her fear as she had only been in Lebanon for a few days.
• Filipino domestic worker Marites Penno hanged herself on the balcony of her employer’s house in Hasbaya on April 20, 2011. No clues were provided regarding the motive for her suicide.
• An Ethiopian housemaid hanged herself in the bathroom of her employer’s office in Antelias on May 9, 2011. She allegedly wanted to return to her homeland but her employers refused to grant her this wish, thus driving her to suicide.
• A Sri Lankan maid attacked her 70-year old employer Neemat Munzir on February 23, 2012, beating her severely on the head with sharp objects in her home in Burj Barajni. Mrs. Munzir fainted and was later stabbed to death with a knife. The husband reported that the maid had been working at their home for two years and that he was ignorant of the reason behind her offence because she was treated no differently from other family members. Security sources believe that the maid used to have psychological disorders and that she was suffering difficult conditions at her employer’s house.
• Ethiopian housemaid Palici Hendor committed suicide on February 2, 2012 in her employer’s house in Ghadeer using female stockings. Some hypothesized that the maid did not hang herself but was killed.
• A Bangladeshi maid hanged herself on June 12, 2012 and was found dead in a domestic workers’ office in Byblos. The maid had arrived in Lebanon only a few days earlier and she committed suicide because of her fear of the experience of working in a foreign country.
• On the same note, the most atrocious incident was the suicide of Ethiopian maid Alem Dechasa after video footage was aired of her being beaten by her employer. The video showed a man dragging Dechasa by the hair and pushing her forcibly into a car with the assistance of another man, who turned out to be the owner of the employment agency that recruited her. He reported that the maid had tried to commit suicide several times and that he took her to the Ethiopian Embassy to deport her but she refused and was admitted to Deir al-Salib psychiatric hospital. She later chocked herself to death with her blanket on March 14, 2012.
• Domestic worker Rassonia Actar, 45, killed her employer Wafaa Nakhle, 45, on August 26, 2012. Actar had arrived to Lebanon 5 days before the murder to nurse her employer’s aging parents in Al-Teebeh in South Lebanon. She spent the first night at Mrs. Nakhle’s house in Chiyyah and stabbed her with a knife when she tried to resist her. Actar stole her employer’s jewelery and ran away. She later admitted that she came to Lebanon for theft, not for work.