Lebanon – Many Migrant Women Workers Lef Behind as War Raged

Visuals by Diego Ibarra Sanchez – Text by Alissa J. Rubin

Dec. 16, 2024 – In September, when hundreds of thousands of Lebanese fled Israeli bombing, some left behind the migrant women who cleaned their houses, washed their clothes and cooked their meals.

Some workers say they were locked out, others that they were told to stay as bombs fell.

Those who didn’t live where they worked often bedded down in southern Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold under bombardment.

For many, the cease-fire changed little. Some returned to their old workplaces only to find them destroyed.

Lebanon has about 200,000 migrant workers, mostly women, according to surveys by U.N. agencies and human rights groups, with some groups estimating even more.

Many who spent the war sleeping on beaches, or in squares or abandoned buildings, arrived under the “kafala,” or sponsorship, system. Many say employers confiscated their passports, paid pennies per hour, and gave them few if any days off. Some say they were abused.

This system is common throughout Jordan, Lebanon and the Gulf, according to the International Labor Organization, a U.N. agency. Beirut shops display an array of servants’ uniforms.

These jobs find many takers. Labor abroad, workers often say, is better than any option in their home countries.

Ethiopia is Lebanon’s largest source of migrants, and there are substantial numbers of Bangladeshis, Filipinos and Sri Lankans, too, according to U.N. agencies. Among the most recent arrivals are women from Sierra Leone, said local organizations that work with migrants.

Many, like Kadiatu Kamara, 27, from Freetown, leave families behind. Ms. Kamara said that her aged parents and two daughters, including 4-year-old Sally, were back in Sierra Leone, and that she had given up studying information technology.

As bombs fell, migrant women in Beirut’s southern suburbs often ran toward the sea.

Déa Hoge Chahine and Lea Ghoryab, two Lebanese event planners, decided to help.

They said they had persuaded their employer to let them turn one venue, a former factory, into a shelter. It housed 150 women from Sierra Leone, cooking and cleaning for one another. Apartments accommodated another 70.

Since the cease-fire, they say, the shelter has helped about half to leave the country.

Women from Sierra Leone are among the worst off of Lebanon’s migrants, according to non-profit groups that work with migrants.

Mary Isafu Koroma, 28, from Waterloo, said she was paid about $200 a month and worked 18 hours a day, seven days a week. Her employer took her passport when she arrived.

She supports her mother and her daughters, Fatima, 6 and Este, 4.

She never expected to be caught in a war. Now, she longs to return home.

“Before I came to Lebanon, I had never heard a bomb. I was shaking and I couldn’t stop crying.”

Mary Isafu Koroma

Barely a dozen places in Lebanon offered wartime shelter to migrant domestic workers, with space for barely 1,500 people among them.

Tens of thousands more have drifted from place to place, often living on the streets of Beirut and other towns. They have slept on mats laid down in mosque courtyards, on the beach or in unfinished construction sites.

Some, like Shiwali Youssef, from Bangladesh, became homeless as they struggled to care for young children.

Lebanon created nearly 1,000 wartime shelters for its citizens. Those are off limits for migrants.

Indrani Manike, 44, from Sri Lanka, said she was a house cleaner in southern Lebanon for 20 years. When the bombing started, she and her husband, a janitor, were terrified for their 3-year-old daughter.

They paid a small fortune for a taxi — $100 — and fled to a convent in Ghosta.

They returned after the cease-fire, but found their home and workplace bombed.

The Nuns of the Charity Convent hosts families from Ethiopia, Sri Lanka and Sudan.

Osman Yehia Aloud, 40, said he had escaped war in Sudan, finding work at a gas station in southern Lebanon. This war forced him to flee again to the convent, bringing his wife, Souhaiba Abdullah, 22, and their son Ahmed, 5.

With the cease-fire, he said, he rushed to get his job back, but found the gas station destroyed and his small house badly damaged.

In Beirut, women sheltering in St. Joseph’s Church expressed a similar sense of being in limbo.

The Jesuit Refugee Service has turned the building’s upper story into a dormitory that now houses about 70. In the courtyard, migrants’ children play and study online.

They are Muslim and Christian, speak different languages and come from a half-dozen countries but sleep, cook, and wash their clothes together.

“I’m still having anxiety and fear, but I’m feeling safe in the church.”Toyba Kassa, 31, from Ethiopia

Saminey Kafara, 35, from Ethiopia, said she had come to work in Lebanon at 14, escaping civil strife.

Now, she said, she has applied for refugee status and hopes to find a better place to raise her daughter, Faven, 13, who sings in the church choir, draws with the other children at the shelter and dreams of becoming a cardiologist.

Life feels fragile for everyone in Lebanon, but for migrants it hangs by a thread.

Some never felt safe, even when they had jobs. Many were trafficked and then faced abusive employers, according to Michael Petro, a Jesuit who works with them.

Siri, who asked to be identified only by her first name, said she suffered sexual abuse soon after arriving in Lebanon.

The bombing brought her to St. Joseph’s and its sanctuary. She has no idea what comes next.

WUNRN

The Discarded Women of Lebanon – The New York Times