Showing posts with label hotline. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hotline. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Ministry of Labor hotline #Lebanon 01540114 خط ساخن لوزارة العمل
Friday, December 31, 2010
الأخبار: 2011 وصفات لأمراض العدل
عاملات المنازل والعمال العرب ليسوا بخير... قوانين المراقبة والحماية ليست فعالة. تتقدم حُرمة البيوت على حقوق الإنسان، عشرات العاملات فارقن الحياة هذا العام، وانتهت التحقيقات باعتبارهن منتحرات. أجور بعض العاملات لا تُدفع، وساعات العمل لا تكاد تنتهي، وأيام العطل حق لا يتمتعن به.
الخطوة الأولى ملقاة على عاتق وزارة العمل، لتفعيل شروط العقد الموحد للعاملات الأجنبيات، وتفعيل أداء «الخط الساخن»، الخطوة الثانية من واجبات المشرعين، فليشرعوا متابعة شروط العامل داخل المنازل. الخطوة الأخيرة من واجبات القائمين بالتحقيقات الجنائية، فالمطلوب التوسع في التحقيقات في وفيات عاملات، أو ما تتعرض له أخريات من سوء معامل. عشرات العمال العرب يقعون ضحايا حوادث العمل، أو يتعرضن للسلب والنشل وللاعتداءات الجسدية. الحماية ضرورية من خلال فرض القوانين التي تجبر أصحاب العمل على تقديم الضمانات الأساسية للعامل من وسائل الحماية في الورش، والتأمينات الصحية وتثبيت معدل متوسط للأجور، والأهم لتوقع الحكومة اللبنانية اتفاقات مع دول هؤلاء العمال بغية تشريع وجودهم وعملهم في لبنان.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
More domestic workers making use of hotlines, other help mechanisms
By Alexandra Taylor, Special to The Daily Star, Saturday, December 18, 2010
BEIRUT: As the United Nations commemorates International Migrants Day Saturday the situation of the estimated 200,000 migrant domestic workers in Lebanon remains problematic.
International focus on the issue intensified when a 2008 Human Rights Watch (HRW) report said domestic workers were dying at a rate of more than one a week in Lebanon. As recently as September 2010, KAFA (Enough), a women’s rights advocacy organization, documented nine deaths of domestic workers in a one-month period.
A lack of mechanisms to report incidents of abuse contributed to the dire situation for many foreign workers.
The Labor Ministry established a hotline to address this issue in June, but its impact has yet to be assessed. According to a September HRW report, as of July, not a single worker had contacted the ministry’s hotline.
However a source from the ministry said the hotline was now receiving calls regularly, and that Labor Minister Butros Harb had made revamping legislation on the situation of foreign workers a “highest priority.”
The source said the ministry would unveil a long-awaited draft law to address foreign workers’ conditions and was about to complete a translation, into 14 languages, of the Unified Work Contract, which now covers their status.
Meanwhile, KAFA has been active in offering its own confidential hotline service for abuse victims and has seen an increase in calls from migrant domestic workers due to its recent outreach efforts.
According to the hotline’s senior social worker, Rima Abi Nader, prior to KAFA’s outreach program, “People didn’t know what was here. You need to build a certain level of trust.”
KAFA’s new program to reach out to migrant workers began in June with the publication of a newsletter, whose first issue tackled the language gap.
BEIRUT: As the United Nations commemorates International Migrants Day Saturday the situation of the estimated 200,000 migrant domestic workers in Lebanon remains problematic.
International focus on the issue intensified when a 2008 Human Rights Watch (HRW) report said domestic workers were dying at a rate of more than one a week in Lebanon. As recently as September 2010, KAFA (Enough), a women’s rights advocacy organization, documented nine deaths of domestic workers in a one-month period.
A lack of mechanisms to report incidents of abuse contributed to the dire situation for many foreign workers.
The Labor Ministry established a hotline to address this issue in June, but its impact has yet to be assessed. According to a September HRW report, as of July, not a single worker had contacted the ministry’s hotline.
However a source from the ministry said the hotline was now receiving calls regularly, and that Labor Minister Butros Harb had made revamping legislation on the situation of foreign workers a “highest priority.”
The source said the ministry would unveil a long-awaited draft law to address foreign workers’ conditions and was about to complete a translation, into 14 languages, of the Unified Work Contract, which now covers their status.
Meanwhile, KAFA has been active in offering its own confidential hotline service for abuse victims and has seen an increase in calls from migrant domestic workers due to its recent outreach efforts.
According to the hotline’s senior social worker, Rima Abi Nader, prior to KAFA’s outreach program, “People didn’t know what was here. You need to build a certain level of trust.”
KAFA’s new program to reach out to migrant workers began in June with the publication of a newsletter, whose first issue tackled the language gap.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
The Ministry of Labor’s worker complaint hotline is 01.540.114
The Lebanese Ministry of Labor has set up a hotline for workers’ complaints. Rights groups say the initiative is good, but does not do enough to help migrant domestic workers.
The Ministry of Labor’s worker complaint hotline is 01.540.114 .
+961 1 540114 for international calls.
Full article: http://www.nowlebanon.com/NewsArticleDetails.aspx?ID=201147&MID=0&PID=0
The Ministry of Labor’s worker complaint hotline is 01.540.114 .
+961 1 540114 for international calls.
Full article: http://www.nowlebanon.com/NewsArticleDetails.aspx?ID=201147&MID=0&PID=0
Thursday, September 2, 2010
The Economist: Domestic workers in the Middle East have a horrible time
Maids in the Middle East: Little better than slavery
Domestic workers in the Middle East have a horrible time
The Economist
http://www.economist.com/node/16953469?story_id=16953469
Sep 2nd 2010
AS a maid working in Saudi Arabia, Lahanda Purage Ariyawathie suffered at the hands of her Saudi employer and his wife, who skewered her body with at least 24 nails and needles (pictured). Her case was unusually brutal, but the abuse of domestic workers in the Middle East is all too common.
Huge numbers of migrant domestic workers, mostly from Asia and Africa, are employed throughout the region. Some 1.5m work in Saudi Arabia, 660,000 in Kuwait and 200,000 in Lebanon. Many work very long hours and receive little food, no time off and pay that is a fraction of any minimum wage, if it materialises at all. Human Rights Watch (HRW), a New York-based group, says at least one domestic worker died every week in Lebanon between January 2007 and August 2008. Almost half were suicides and many were as a result of falling from high buildings, often while trying to escape their employers. Mistreatment is so widespread that the Philippines, Ethiopia and Nepal no longer let their citizens go to Lebanon to work as maids, though such bans have had little effect.
Most maids get their jobs through sponsorship systems, so their immigration status is tied to their employer. Employers can repatriate them at will, prevent them from changing jobs and, in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, stop them from leaving the country.
In much of the Middle East domestic workers are also excluded from legal employment protection. There has been talk of reform, but little has come of it. In a lonely example Jordan extended its labour laws in 2008 to cover domestic workers.
In June the Lebanese ministry of labour set up a hotline for workers’ complaints. HRW has been monitoring the hotline which, it notes, has not been advertised to migrant domestic workers, is open only between 8am and 1pm, and has no translators. In the first month it did not receive a single call from a domestic worker. NGOs and religious organisations have done better. They have set up text-message numbers so that maids trapped at home can report abuses and get free legal advice.
Domestic workers in the Middle East have a horrible time
The Economist
http://www.economist.com/node/16953469?story_id=16953469
Sep 2nd 2010
AS a maid working in Saudi Arabia, Lahanda Purage Ariyawathie suffered at the hands of her Saudi employer and his wife, who skewered her body with at least 24 nails and needles (pictured). Her case was unusually brutal, but the abuse of domestic workers in the Middle East is all too common.
Huge numbers of migrant domestic workers, mostly from Asia and Africa, are employed throughout the region. Some 1.5m work in Saudi Arabia, 660,000 in Kuwait and 200,000 in Lebanon. Many work very long hours and receive little food, no time off and pay that is a fraction of any minimum wage, if it materialises at all. Human Rights Watch (HRW), a New York-based group, says at least one domestic worker died every week in Lebanon between January 2007 and August 2008. Almost half were suicides and many were as a result of falling from high buildings, often while trying to escape their employers. Mistreatment is so widespread that the Philippines, Ethiopia and Nepal no longer let their citizens go to Lebanon to work as maids, though such bans have had little effect.
Most maids get their jobs through sponsorship systems, so their immigration status is tied to their employer. Employers can repatriate them at will, prevent them from changing jobs and, in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, stop them from leaving the country.
In much of the Middle East domestic workers are also excluded from legal employment protection. There has been talk of reform, but little has come of it. In a lonely example Jordan extended its labour laws in 2008 to cover domestic workers.
In June the Lebanese ministry of labour set up a hotline for workers’ complaints. HRW has been monitoring the hotline which, it notes, has not been advertised to migrant domestic workers, is open only between 8am and 1pm, and has no translators. In the first month it did not receive a single call from a domestic worker. NGOs and religious organisations have done better. They have set up text-message numbers so that maids trapped at home can report abuses and get free legal advice.
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