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Website helps Lebanon's migrant workers expose abuse

Migrant domestic workers in Lebanon are not protected by labor laws, but a new website hopes to give them a voice to speak out against abuse.
Migrant domestic workers hold placards and chant slogans during a parade to support the rights of migrant domestic workers, on May Day in downtown Beirut, Lebanon May 1, 2016. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir - RTX2CB24
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This year on International Workers' Day, on May 1, domestic migrant workers demonstrated in the streets of Lebanon, protesting their lack of rights. That same day, Dipendra Uprety launched the website This Is Lebanon to gather the testimonies of domestic workers and their families. Domestic workers have no rights in Lebanon, because they fall under the “kafala,” or sponsorship, system, which is not regulated by labor law. Some of them, therefore, perhaps unsurprisingly, are subjected to untold abuse.

A 2010 Human Rights Watch (HRW) report explained, “The domestic worker sector is rife with complaints of nonpayment of wages, excessive working hours, forced confinement, and even physical and sexual abuse — fueled by Lebanese labor law that excludes MDWs [Migrant Domestic Workers] from standard labor protections afforded to almost all other categories of workers, such as the right to a weekly day of rest, paid leave, benefits, and worker compensation.”

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