Dozens of African working women, especially Ethiopians, launched a protest against the sponsorship system in “Mostadiret Al-Dawra " in Beirut, last Sunday, coinciding with the International Day of Domestic Workers.
Lebanese and foreign rights activists and trade unionists participated in the protest, following the call of Amnesty International.
The African working women described sponsorship system as a continuation of slavery, where violations exceeded the detention of their passports, the "imprisonment" of workers and the non-payment of their salaries on a regular basis to the practice of torture and psychological and physical abuse against them, in addition to their deprivation of the right of weekly leave and a limited number of working hours.
Activists called for the inclusion of domestic workers in the labour law and the abolition of the sponsorship system, which makes the worker at the employer's mercy by linking her fate of her legal residence to " the extent to his satisfaction", especially with the absence of a fair legal system that would allow the worker to get her rights back.
Amnesty International said in a statement that since 9 years of the demand to redress women migrant workers, "the Lebanese authorities have not shown, even once, a real willingness to work to solve the problems resulting from the sponsorship system. None of the parties of this authority has taken a serious step to ensure the legal protection of female domestic workers. "
The statement added: "There has been no actual punishment for employers or recruitment offices who abused and violated their employees in addition to the death of workers, which have not been thoroughly investigated."
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