BEIRUT: Alem Dechasa-Desisa left Ethiopia the day after Christmas
last year. She headed for Lebanon,
where she planned to make enough money to support her two children.
Within three months, she was dead,
the victim of an apparent suicide. Even before her death, Alem had become
something of a cause célèbre in some parts of Lebanese society and her case
drew international attention.
Abused outside her own consulate in
a videotaped incident, Alem was forced by a man later identified as Ali Mahfouz
into a car as she lay screaming on the ground outside a place that was supposed
to keep her safe.
At 33, Alem was one of 200,000
migrant domestic workers in Lebanon.
That her case has garnered notice makes it an anomaly, but what happened to her
is not.
Nearly every step of her journey
from Burayu, her home outside Addis
Ababa, to her eventual death in a psychiatric hospital
in the Lebanese mountains is indicative of a failure in the haphazard Lebanese
system that deals with the women who come to work in the homes and care for the
children of many in this country.
Alem’s husband, Lamesa, told The
Daily Star that he and his wife borrowed more than 4,500 Ethiopian Birr, around
$260, to facilitate her travel. That’s about three months salary of the
country’s average national income, and most of it went to a local broker.
He also said she was expected to pay
the first two months of her salary to agents in Ethiopia.
Three years ago, Ethiopia imposed a ban on its citizens going to Lebanon to work
as domestics. So Alem went through Yemen. Ethiopia’s
consul general in Lebanon,
Asaminew Debelie Bonssa, has estimated that there are between 60,000 and 80,000
Ethiopians in Lebanon,
only 43,000 legally, having come before the ban.
That makes women like her especially
vulnerable to human trafficking. Ghada Jabbour, head of KAFA’s Trafficking and
Exploitation Unit, said that Alem was “seemingly a victim of trafficking. Not
only had she incurred debts to come to Lebanon,
but also she was smuggled outside Ethiopia because of the current
ban. In addition, the sponsorship system in Lebanon tied her to a specific
employer and did not grant her the freedom to decide her future.”
Trafficking is a tough crime to
prove, and despite an anti-trafficking law passed in Lebanon last summer, not much has
been done in the way of implementation. And women continue to come, trafficked
or otherwise. In large part, this is due to financial imbalances. Even paltry
salaries – several workers told The Daily Star of wages around $200 a month for
fulltime work – can amount to a great deal in struggling home countries.
Lebanese authorities still grant
visas to people from countries with deployment bans, and so Alem arrived,
technically “undocumented” but very much part of the Lebanese “kafala”
(sponsorship) system where work and residency is tied to a specific employer,
even before she made it to the airport.
Because she was in the country
illegally, Bonssa said she and others like her are hard to keep track of.
Activists say even documented women are often afraid or unable to contact their
embassies if they need help.
According to Hicham Borji, president
of the union of workers’ recruitment agencies, there are around 450 licensed
agencies in Lebanon.
An optimistic estimate, he says, is that 100 of these agencies – that act as
go-betweens between workers and employers – actually conform to the terms of
their licenses. These include a stable location, a land line and a so-called
“safe room” for domestic workers who may need to stay at the agency.
Alem’s agency – which was supposed
to care for her when she was not with an employer, sent her to two homes. Both
sent her back. Chadi Mahfouz, the agency’s director, delegated his brother Ali
Mahfouz to deal with Alem after she returned from the second house.
Chadi Mahfouz told The Daily Star
that his brother, now charged with contributing to and causing Alem’s death, is
not an employee of the agency he directs. This means the agency was acting
illegally – but it has not lost its license, in fact it has since become a
member of the union.
After what he said were two suicide
attempts – both after her removal from the second house – Ali Mahfouz brought
Alem to the consulate, where he told staff she was mentally ill. Bonssa, who
has since expressed regret at trusting Mahfouz, told him to take her to a
hospital. It was outside the consulate, a place that ought to have been a
refuge, that the beating took place.
At the hospital where she was later
brought, according to a forensic report leaked to The Daily Star, Alem was
treated as “a patient suffering from severe depression.” She was on five
medications, and according to the doctor who was sent by the General
Prosecutor, she had no visible bruises or abrasions. “But she said she has pain
in her scalp and made us understand that she had been grabbed by her hair,” the
report continued.
Indeed, in the video Mahfouz is seen
dragging Alem by her hair.
The police arrived at the consulate
the day of the incident, in late February. The government-ordered physician was
not sent to see Alem until March 10 – two days after the video went viral and
two weeks after she was abused – and she died on March 14. According to a
leaked indictment, charges were pressed against Ali Mahfouz March 20, around a
month after she was beaten.
“If [the abuse of Alem
Dechasa-Desisa] was not broadcast [by a local television station], there would
be no attention from the Justice and Labor ministries,” said Ghada Jabbour,
head of KAFA’s Trafficking and Exploitation Unit. Migrant worker suicides are
frequent in Lebanon,
she added, and “usually there is not a complete and serious investigation about
the death of the worker and the case is closed quickly.”
Why Alem killed herself remains an
unknown. Although some members of her family reported that she and her common
law husband were having marital problems, he denied this. Lamesa said he spoke
to her some five times during her short time in Lebanon, and she reported no
troubles. “We lived together for 13 years and she had no mental problems,” he
said.
Nadim Houry of Human Rights Watch
shares Jabbour’s concerns. He said that Mahfouz’s prosecution, which is not
unheard of but extremely rare, “will be an important precedent to follow. But
every week there are employers who lock in domestic workers, every other week
there is a suicide, are we going to see prosecution for forced confinement and
other abuses?”
Both Jabbour and Houry argue that
ultimately the sponsorship system itself needs to be changed, with Houry
calling it “the root cause of many of these violations.” But there are other
issues that should be addressed, Houry added, including orientations for employers
and employees. And, he said, “they need to start researching the role of
agencies ... frankly that industry is deeply problematic.”
Borji of the agencies’ union agrees
his sector does need to change. Admitting Mahfouz’ agency into the union, he
argued, will help it improve.
But while he “hates” the sponsorship
system, Borji does not see a viable alternative. In theory, he believes it
ensures transportation to Lebanon
and medical care are covered by sponsors. Instead, he said there should be real
punishment for abusive employers and those who withhold salaries.
Lebanon failed Alem – as it does so many other workers.
And now, in a final indignity, her body still lies in the very hospital where
she took her own life a month ago. Her husband said he cannot work, as her
family has come from another village to wait and mourn. Chadi Mahfouz has said
he’s ready to facilitate her repatriation – but there appear to be some
bureaucratic hitches. Now Lamesa has one modest request: “I just want her body
back.”
By Annie Slemrod
