تلفزيون الجديد: أنا واللبناني على عاملة المنزل الأجنبية، وأنا وعاملة المنزل الأجنبية على العامل الأجنبي

في تقريره السيئ والمغلوط والذي زيّف وقائع حادثة الإعتداء على العمال الأجانب، قام تلفزيون الجديد باستعمال شهادات لعاملات منزل أجنبيات، إضافة لشهادات اللبنانيين، لاتهام العمال الأجانب من مصريين وسوريين وغيرهم بالقيام باعتداءات على النساء والبنات.

تطبيقا لمبدأ "أنا وأخي على ابن عمي, وأنا وابن عمي على الغريب"، عندما يعتدي اللبناني على عاملة المنزل الأجنبية، يكون اللبناني مظلوما ومتهم زورا. أما عندما يكون الأجنبي متهم، فهو مدان. وعندها تصلح شهادة عاملات المنزل الأجنبيات لإثبات التهمة.

يعطيك العافية منتجة التقرير راشيل كرم.

هذا هو التقرير:

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The Daily Star Editorial: Real racism

The Daily Star, March 16, 2012

LBC’s broadcast shows the Ethiopian woman being pushed into a car by Mahfouz and another accomplice.

The tragic case of Ethiopian migrant worker Alem Dechasa, who committed suicide this week, has once again shone light on the shameful neglect of basic human rights in Lebanon. Dechasa was seen being beaten and forced into a car by a Lebanese man, in footage released last week. She killed herself Wednesday morning

MTV comes under attack for airing racially charged program

The Daily Star on February 06, 2012, by Stephen Dockery
With additional reporting by Dana Khraiche

 BEIRUT: Racially charged programing targeting migrant domestic workers has critics leveling new charges of racism at the popular but controversial Murr Television station.

In a recent skit on the station’s comedy program ‘Ktir Salbe,’ a couple asks an agent for a new maid with qualifications such as “servant,”

Activists to MTV: Racism is not funny

Angie Nassar from Now Lebanon on the reactions to MTV's Ktir Salbe racism scandal

(...)

“I can’t think of anything lower than this. I don’t know where we are going,” said Farah Salka, who works with the Anti-Racist Movement in Lebanon, in response to the Ktir Salbe video. “The main problem is that people don’t see these workers as human beings, and this is the best example: they’re making fun of them dying.”

“There is a very thin line between being stupid and being funny and MTV just doesn’t get the difference,” said Wissam al-Saliby from the Ethiopian Suicides blog. “And

Massive uproar against yet another Lebanon MTV (Murr TV) racist show

It was meant to be funny. And I thought that the first reactions against the video I saw on Facebook were activist exaggerations. Because we are supposed to be able to make fun of our human rights challenges and violations. And humor can be a good advocacy tool.

But the Lebanese TV, Murr TV, yet again crossed ethical and moral red lines. Their comedy show, "Ktir Salbe" produced a trashy sexually explicit video in which migrant domestic workers are dehumanized and objectified to the point where the person playing the role of the recruitment agency representative responded to the couple seeking a domestic worker: "Do you think that I am a pimp?". The "husband" at the end of the video suggested that to the recruiter "to shove up his *** the broomstick that their last maid had used before she jumped from the balcony".

Facebook, Twitter and Youtube comments are those disdain and condemnation. This is the post by the Anti-Racism Movement. (18+) on the issue. Some on the Internet called for shutting down MTV again.

This comes after a previous Murr TV report that we reported on previously, on the "invasion of perverted migrants" of Bourj Hammoud (North Beirut Suburb).

In the caption under the video, we read "Ktir Salbe" - Monday 8:30 PM on MTV Lebanon - Written By Jiscar Lahoud & Nabil Assaf Directed by Hani Khashfeh.

Someone needs to tell these persons, as well as Murr TV staff and managers, of the existence of media ethics.

Wissam al-Saliby, Ethiopian Suicides.


The following is the video. In Arabic. Recommended 18 years and up.



And these are some of the social media reactions:

On Youtube:

• we are in 2011 you racist Lebanese!

  najem 13

الإساءة إلى العاملات الأجنبيات في لبنان مستمرة بلا قانون يجرّمها وينظّم المهنة: قصصٌ من يومياتهن مع "الكفيل" و"المخدوم" وصولاً إلى اللا - تحقيق في جرائم القتل!

حيواتهن بيننا تنمو على حافة الموت ظلماً (فادي أبو غليوم)

جريدة السفير، 2 آب 2011، نبيل المقدم
لم يكن قد مضى أكثر من ستة أشهر على مباشرة «كلارا» العمل في منزل مخدومها في غزير، في قضاء كسروان، عندما قررت الهروب بـ»أي ثمن». انتظرت الصبية الفيليبينية خلود سكان المنزل الى النوم، ورمت بنفسها من الطابق الثاني. وعلى الرغم من التواء ساقها، أكملت «كلارا» فرارها، مستقلة سيارة أجرة إلى بيروت.
تقول «كلارا» لـ»السفير» إن عملها «كان يبدأ عند السادسة صباحاً، ويمتد حتى منتصف الليل». ولم تحصل خلال ستة أشهر أمضتها في العمل على راتبها كاملاً سوى مرة واحدة، ولكنها «حظيت» بالكثير من «الصفع والركل من صاحب المنزل وزوجته بسبب مطالبتها بأجرها». طبعاً، كانت «كلارا» تنام في المطبخ، مفتقدةً أي خصوصية حياتية.
يسلّم مسؤولون رسميون وحقوقيون وناشطون في مجال حماية الفئات المهمشة، ومن ضمنها العاملات في المنازل، بأن انتهاك حقوقهم يشكل ظاهرة مقلقة في لبنان، لناحية تعرّضهم لـ»باقة» كبيرة من الإساءات الجنسية والاقتصادية والنفسية والجسدية.
وفي ظل استثنائهن من قانون العمل اللبناني،

The Daily Star Editorial: Stop the Slavery in Lebanon

Stop the slavery in Lebanon
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&article_id=116000&categ_id=17
Wednesday, June 16, 2010

The US State Department issued on Monday its annual Trafficking in Persons report, and the horrifying litany of abuses catalogued from Lebanon and throughout this region should be more than enough to push our legislators to finally enact a law against trafficking.

Yes, that’s right – Lebanon does not even have on the books the most basic legislation against trade in human beings. A draft amendment to the labor laws is waiting and waiting in Parliament, and we call without reservation on lawmakers to pass this bill as soon as possible.

That glaring absence of rudimentary legislation served as one of the failures that dumped Lebanon into second-tier status in the trafficking report, and Qatar also finished in that ignominious category, as far as other Arab states are concerned. Should the circumstances here further worsen, we could yet find ourselves in the third and lowest tier of countries – nations which are not even making significant efforts to combat human trafficking. Unfortunately, we would find there a number of our regional brethren: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Sudan and Iran all lack laws against trafficking and any marked moves to address the problem.

In Lebanon, the violations of human rights through trafficking take a variety of forms. For instance,

Migrant-Rights.org Animation: Protect the human rights of migrant workers in the Middle East

For more info: http://www.migrant-rights.org/2010/04/09/animation-protect-the-human-rights-of-migrant-workers-in-the-middle-east/

Video: Dependency creates vulnerability, leads to exploitation

In November 2009, one of Future TV's Tawasul [Communicating] episodes was on the situation of women migrant domestic workers.

In that episode (published below), International Labor Organization (ILO) senior technical specialist, Ms. Simel Esim called for the end of the exclusion of domestic workers (not just migrants) from the application of labor laws. Lawyer Rolan Taok who is active on this issue called for a special tribunal for solving cases of migrant domestic workers with the purpose of speeding up the cases, as well as an overhaul of the system of employing migrants and abolishing the sponsorship 'kafala' system.

Ms. Simel added "with the kafala system, you are creating a total dependency of the worker on the employer for her food, sleeping, health, everything... Total dependency creates total vulnerability and opens the door wide to exploitation (...) We always say why are they coming? There are push factors: poverty, unemployment (in their home country)".

To get the footage, I contacted Ms. Simel at the ILO offices, and we had a good chat over the phone about the latest developments on migrant domestic workers rights. She told me that the ministry of labor is attempting to make functional the office and procedure for receiving complaints related to migrant domestic workers (office supposedly set up last February). Last week, when I tried to get the number of that mysterious "office" on 1515 (Phone company information line), I was given the Ministry of Labor's phone number. That's the only number they have.

Africa Review: Stranded moments for immigrants

Ms Abebe was only 21 when an employment agency visited her village. The job, as the agents described it, sounded like heaven. But what the agent did not tell her was that as a maid in Lebanon, she was to live among the lowest of the low.

"The family pushes you like they own you," she recalls. "I suffered abuse from the father, his son and his friends. But I was lucky because they never hit me."

(...)

Abebe now lives in a legal limbo unable to return to Ethiopia, caught in a debt-bondage between her former host-family, who filed a counter report of theft when she went to the police, and General Security for overstaying her visa. But she has no work permit and cannot get legal representation. She was unable to continue the conversation.

Full Africa Review article here, published March 11, 2010.

New Blog: Culture of Racism and Discrimination in Lebanon

I just discovered this new blog http://humanrights-lb.blogspot.com/
Seems to be a good initiative, but i do note the need for more Arabic content on human rights in Lebanon STARTING WITH MY OWN BLOG, and in Arabic scripts - not in the Latin Arabic I just found on that blog.

“The rights of 90% of maids are violated”, businessman who brings in maids to Lebanon (video)

عرض تلفزيون الـشبكة الوطنية للإرسال، ليل 22 شباط 2010، حلقة "الحياة أحلى" تخللها فقرة عن ظاهرة العنف ضد الخادمات الأجانب وحالات الانتحار تكلم خلالها د. أحمد عياش، رئيس مركز بلاد للدراسات النفسية والاجتماعية، و السيد جون قصابلي، صاحب مكتب استقدام خادمات أجانب.
في الدقيقة 19 من التسجيل الذي يلي والبالغة مدته 22 دقيقة، يعلن السيد جون قصابلي، صاحب مكتب استقدام خادمات أجانب، أن قسما كبيرا من الخادمات الأجانب الذين يموتون لا يعرف سبب موتهم الحقيقي، وهو ليس السقوط خلال تنظيف الزجاج، بل أن المخافر تشترك في إخفاء حقيقة ما يحصل وفي إخفاء دور الرجل في المنزل وما إذا دُفعت نحو الانتحار.

NBN TV aired a 22 minute interview, on the evening of Monday 22 February 2010, with Dr. Ahmad Ayash, head of a psycho-social studies center, and Mr. John Cassabli, owner of a business which bring maids to Lebanon.
The latter acknowledged the detrimental role of many businesses in the plight of migrant domestic workers. He gave the figure of 90% of migrant domestic workers whose rights are not respected – mistreatment or given one meal per day or etc. He also mentioned cases of rape or sexual enslavement.
He added (minute 19 of the recording) the following:

“We are dealing with these case as if a cat died, or a pullet (chicken less than 1 year old) fell of the balcony. Allow me to say: not all of them are dying because of falling while cleaning windows. I just came from a meeting with the consul of Madagascar. He told me that 4 migrant workers died in one week in domestic accidents as if the houses are situated in the middle of highways and as if they were crushed by cars. The consul added that men in houses where they died are involved. I have no confirmation for this, but things are being covered up in police stations under the title of ‘suicide’. No further investigations are done, especially whether or not she was pushed to commit suicide.”

Ethiopian suicides comments: Mr. Cassabli’s remarks and acknowledgments are shocking. How many deaths of migrant domestic workers go unreported because they were not spectacular enough (jumping from the balcony or drinking detergent)? How did Mr. Cassabli reach the figure of “90% of maids are mistreated”?

Feminist Collective's Domestic Migrant Workers Position Paper

The Feminist Collective is a Lebanon based group of young feminists who are working together to recreate a world free from sexism, and all other forms of exploitations and discrimination that collaborate with it: classism, heterosexism, racism, capitalism, etc.

They published a position paper on migrant domestic workers which can be found here.

Quote:

Migrant women are stereotyped as submissive and stupid, as well as cunning. They are infantilized, addressed as “bint” (immature/ little girl). Often, they are looked at as private property, where “if she happens to have any health or other problem, she may be ‘returned’ to the employment agency, who will ensure that she is quickly ‘replaced.’” A Migrant worker is also seen as alien and inferior to “us”, so that her employers give themselves the right to “teach” (i.e. abuse) her. The lives of workers and their presence in our lives are also often erased from our literature, TV shows, and all other media.

While in his article in Arabic in Al-Akhbar newspaper "Victimhood and skin color: The Ethiopian [female workers] on the crashed plane", As'ad Abu Khalil asks "Can we imaging that the Future Movement and Hezbollah will issue one day a statement on the situation of migrant domestic workers in Lebanon?"

He adds, in Arabic:

لو أن أجسادهنّ يتولين الرواية ماذا كن قلن؟ قصص متكرّرة من الضرب ومن الجلد ومن القصاص. قصص من الاغتصاب والتحرّش الجنسي. قصص عن تجاهل رسمي لتكرار «حوادث» سقوط العاملات الإثيوبيّات والسريلانكيّات من الشرفات. تتعامل الشرطة اللبنانيّة مع تلك الحوادث كما تتعامل مع «حوادث» سقوط الثمار اليانعة عن الغصون. انتحارات بالجملة في وطن ثورة (حراس) الأرز. لا نسمع مرّة واحدة عن تحقيق رسمي. هل هناك من يسأل ومن يحقّق في انتحارات عاملات المنازل؟ هل سيق مخدوم واحد للتحقيق؟ هل خضعت أجساد المُنتحرات للفحص على يد الطبيب الشرعي للتحقق من خلوّهن من آثار ضرب أو اغتصاب أو الاثنين معاً؟ أليس هناك من يطالب بفتح تحقيق في ظروف وفاة العاملات الأجنبيّات في لبنان أو انتحارهن؟

Article: MDWs Dying on the Job in Lebanon

Dalila Mahdawi published yesterday an article on IPS News on Migrant Women Dying on the Job in Lebanon. The following is an excerpt.

BEIRUT, Nov 21 (IPS) - October and November have been bloody months for Lebanon's migrant domestic workers - over the last five weeks nine women have died. Most deaths have been reported as suicide.

The body of 20-year old Anget R. of Madagascar was found hanging from a rope at her employer's bedroom door Nov. 11. A newspaper in Madagascar reported the deaths of two other Malagasy women in October. One, identified only as Mampionona, was said to have fallen from the balcony of her employer's house. The other, identified as Vololona, died after reportedly jumping from the balcony.

Sunit Bholan of Nepal, who was 22, allegedly committed suicide Oct. 8. Ethiopian Kassaye Etsegenet, 23, died after reportedly jumping from the seventh floor of her employer's house Oct. 15. She left behind a suicide note citing personal reasons.

On Oct. 21, 26-year-old Zeditu Kebede Matente of Ethiopia was found dead, hanging from an olive tree. Two days later 30-year old Saneet Mariam also of Ethiopia died after allegedly falling from the balcony of her employer's house.

The list goes on: Nepalese national Mina Rokaya, 24, and then Tezeta Yalmoya of Ethiopia, 26 – who also died, it was said, when she fell from the balcony.

Full article on: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49362