Filipina migrant workers demonstrate in front of their embassy in Beirut against a ban on workers coming to Lebanon. (AFP Photo/Anwar Amro)
Sang Nunag, a Filipina working in the home of a Lebanese family, is angry. However, unlike many of her fellow nationals, the source of her ire is the Philippine government and embassy, not her employer.
Nunag, who told NOW Lebanon she’s been working here for 31 years, cannot travel home to visit her family because if she did, her government would not allow her to return to her job. In 2007, the Philippines issued a ban on its nationals working in Lebanon because the country lacks legislation ensuring their rights and more recently stopped offering exemptions that allowed workers here before the ban to travel home and return.
“The ban should only be for newcomers… They should give us exemptions,” she said, speaking with NOW Lebanon in a crowded courtyard behind a church in Hamra on a recent Sunday.
“Yeah, it’s unfair,” a Filipina woman sitting next to her added, leaning over to join the conversation.
Domestic workers in Lebanon, who tend to be women from other countries, often suffer abuse and mistreatment with scant access to legal recourse, according to Human Rights Watch. Nunag, however, said she’s happy here, and isn’t abused like so many others.
She said she earns far more here than she could ever hope to earn in the Philippines, a country where the minimum wage varies by region and profession. In and around the capital, Manila, most non-agricultural workers have a minimum wage of $9.22 per day. The standard is lower elsewhere, ranging between $4.66 and $7.69, according to the Ministry of Labor’s [http://www.nwpc.dole.gov.ph/pages/statistics/stat_current_regional.html] website.
The ban on working in Lebanon is a response to abuse of workers as well as security considerations, Ambassador of the Philippines to Lebanon Gilberto Asuque told NOW Lebanon. Asuque said his government has a law that says migrant workers cannot be employed in countries that do not protect them.
The destination country either must have a law protecting migrant workers, have signed international conventions relating to the protection of migrant workers, have a memorandum of understanding on workers’ rights with the Philippines, or be taking “positive, concrete measures to protect the rights of migrant workers,” according to a copy of some of the law’s provisions provided to NOW Lebanon.
If a country fails to meet at least one of these conditions, the government can enforce a ban, Asuque said, which the Philippines did on June 18, 2007. Ausuqe said that based on data from Lebanese immigration officials, the Philippines estimates between 40,000 and 45,000 of its nationals reside here.
He said the embassy often receives reports of abuse and that migrant workers being abused who manage to run away from their employers often come to the embassy, which has a dormitory that can hold up to 150 people.
Going back eight months from January 31, he said the embassy helped 449 abused migrants return, paying the airfare for 405. Lebanon needs to act for the ban to be lifted.
“What we are concerned with is a definitive, legislative, protective measure either by law of Lebanon or by a memorandum of understanding on labor cooperation,” he said, adding that negotiations have been ongoing to hammer out an MoU since 2009.
“As to when it will be concluded, we don’t know. It’s a negotiation that’s ongoing,” he said.
On Thursday, caretaker Labor Minister Boutros Harb announced that he’d finalized a draft law aimed at protecting domestic migrant workers, which, if passed, would likely lead to the Philippines lifting its ban.
Asuque told NOW he called Harb to thank him and will be monitoring the law’s progress in parliament. “We need to wait for the approval of the law. Our law says there needs to be a law… We hope parliament will pass this legislation.”
In the meantime, people like Nunag are getting frustrated. She and other migrant workers from the Philippines protested outside of the embassy in Achrafieh in late December, but she said they did not respond.
Marie Cadevida, who is also from the Philippines but did not join the protest, told NOW Lebanon that she’s considered going home and trying to sneak back, but deemed it “too risky.” She said she knows that some people will try fooling Philippine officials by first travelling to a different country and then coming to Lebanon.
This practice is not only employed by Filipino workers who enjoy their jobs here and want to visit home, but is also a tactic used by new workers looking to dodge the ban, Nadim Houry, a researcher with Human Rights Watch, told NOW Lebanon.
“This, by the way, is not unique to the Philippines,” he said. “It also applies to workers coming from Ethiopia…which has a ban as well, and Nepal as well and Madagascar… There’s a lack of transparency [in this ban dodging]. These are often human traffickers who are profiting from this, and [the migrants] face very difficult circumstances in the meantime.”
Houry said he has also heard of cases where human traffickers are tricking migrants from the Philippines and other countries, promising them work in a different country and sending them to Lebanon.
Asuque, the ambassador, said the government is aware of this problem and is working to combat it. On the concerns of women like Nunag and Cadevida, he said the government used to give “vacation passes” to migrants to return home and then come back.
“But because of the law, they’re reviewing that policy, so we’ve stopped it temporarily,” he said. “In the meantime, everybody waits.”
Nunag, who told NOW Lebanon she’s been working here for 31 years, cannot travel home to visit her family because if she did, her government would not allow her to return to her job. In 2007, the Philippines issued a ban on its nationals working in Lebanon because the country lacks legislation ensuring their rights and more recently stopped offering exemptions that allowed workers here before the ban to travel home and return.
“The ban should only be for newcomers… They should give us exemptions,” she said, speaking with NOW Lebanon in a crowded courtyard behind a church in Hamra on a recent Sunday.
“Yeah, it’s unfair,” a Filipina woman sitting next to her added, leaning over to join the conversation.
Domestic workers in Lebanon, who tend to be women from other countries, often suffer abuse and mistreatment with scant access to legal recourse, according to Human Rights Watch. Nunag, however, said she’s happy here, and isn’t abused like so many others.
She said she earns far more here than she could ever hope to earn in the Philippines, a country where the minimum wage varies by region and profession. In and around the capital, Manila, most non-agricultural workers have a minimum wage of $9.22 per day. The standard is lower elsewhere, ranging between $4.66 and $7.69, according to the Ministry of Labor’s [http://www.nwpc.dole.gov.ph/pages/statistics/stat_current_regional.html] website.
The ban on working in Lebanon is a response to abuse of workers as well as security considerations, Ambassador of the Philippines to Lebanon Gilberto Asuque told NOW Lebanon. Asuque said his government has a law that says migrant workers cannot be employed in countries that do not protect them.
The destination country either must have a law protecting migrant workers, have signed international conventions relating to the protection of migrant workers, have a memorandum of understanding on workers’ rights with the Philippines, or be taking “positive, concrete measures to protect the rights of migrant workers,” according to a copy of some of the law’s provisions provided to NOW Lebanon.
If a country fails to meet at least one of these conditions, the government can enforce a ban, Asuque said, which the Philippines did on June 18, 2007. Ausuqe said that based on data from Lebanese immigration officials, the Philippines estimates between 40,000 and 45,000 of its nationals reside here.
He said the embassy often receives reports of abuse and that migrant workers being abused who manage to run away from their employers often come to the embassy, which has a dormitory that can hold up to 150 people.
Going back eight months from January 31, he said the embassy helped 449 abused migrants return, paying the airfare for 405. Lebanon needs to act for the ban to be lifted.
“What we are concerned with is a definitive, legislative, protective measure either by law of Lebanon or by a memorandum of understanding on labor cooperation,” he said, adding that negotiations have been ongoing to hammer out an MoU since 2009.
“As to when it will be concluded, we don’t know. It’s a negotiation that’s ongoing,” he said.
On Thursday, caretaker Labor Minister Boutros Harb announced that he’d finalized a draft law aimed at protecting domestic migrant workers, which, if passed, would likely lead to the Philippines lifting its ban.
Asuque told NOW he called Harb to thank him and will be monitoring the law’s progress in parliament. “We need to wait for the approval of the law. Our law says there needs to be a law… We hope parliament will pass this legislation.”
In the meantime, people like Nunag are getting frustrated. She and other migrant workers from the Philippines protested outside of the embassy in Achrafieh in late December, but she said they did not respond.
Marie Cadevida, who is also from the Philippines but did not join the protest, told NOW Lebanon that she’s considered going home and trying to sneak back, but deemed it “too risky.” She said she knows that some people will try fooling Philippine officials by first travelling to a different country and then coming to Lebanon.
This practice is not only employed by Filipino workers who enjoy their jobs here and want to visit home, but is also a tactic used by new workers looking to dodge the ban, Nadim Houry, a researcher with Human Rights Watch, told NOW Lebanon.
“This, by the way, is not unique to the Philippines,” he said. “It also applies to workers coming from Ethiopia…which has a ban as well, and Nepal as well and Madagascar… There’s a lack of transparency [in this ban dodging]. These are often human traffickers who are profiting from this, and [the migrants] face very difficult circumstances in the meantime.”
Houry said he has also heard of cases where human traffickers are tricking migrants from the Philippines and other countries, promising them work in a different country and sending them to Lebanon.
Asuque, the ambassador, said the government is aware of this problem and is working to combat it. On the concerns of women like Nunag and Cadevida, he said the government used to give “vacation passes” to migrants to return home and then come back.
“But because of the law, they’re reviewing that policy, so we’ve stopped it temporarily,” he said. “In the meantime, everybody waits.”
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