Patricia, who came to Lebanon from Sierra Leone a few years ago to work as a housekeeper in a house in southern Lebanon, never imagined she would be trapped in a conflict in the Middle East.
“I’m scared. I want to go home. I came to Beirut by ambulance from the southern port city of Tire,” she told dpa at a shelter housing 200 domestic workers stuck without passports.
Scores of foreign domestic workers in Lebanon are trapped in the country as a result of the Israeli attacks.
“The house I worked in was bombed and the lady I worked for was so scared, and so was I,” she said with tears in her eyes.
A group of activists have set up a warehouse in a warehouse for domestic workers stranded in Lebanon to help them cope with the conflict.
Lea Ghorayeb, one of the activists, told dpa that she helped the migrants after they were left on the streets by their employers, amid shelling and without their passports or other official papers.
“Most of them don’t have passports. Most want to leave the country, but some have no money to leave,” she said.
“When things calm down, we will work to send those who are willing to leave to their countries and those who want to stay, we are trying to find some decent places for them to work,” Ghorayeb said.
Ghorayeb said she and other activists had installed a kitchen for the stranded workers so they could cook their own food.
Foreign domestic workers are employed in Lebanon under the controversial Kafala system that links migrants to a local sponsor.
Human rights activists describe the system as slavery. Many employers keep employees’ passports. There are also repeated reports of mistreatment of domestic workers, being confined to the homes where they work, or being forced to work seven days a week.
According to the UN Organization for Migration (IOM), the women mainly come from countries such as Sudan, Egypt, Ethiopia, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
“I don’t want to die. I’m so scared, all I want is to go back home,” said Fatima from Sierra Leone as she held her sister’s three-year-old son.
