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Dreams for Sale: the Exploitation of Domestic Workers from Recruitment in Nepal and Bangladesh to Working in Lebanon

Dreams for Sale: the Exploitation of Domestic Workers from Recruitment in Nepal and Bangladesh to Working in Lebanon

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by Fish Ip published Jan 06, 2015 10:44 AM
This is a study on the recruitment process of migrant domestic workers in Lebanon from Nepal and Bangladesh. It identifies concrete recommendations for reforms to ensure a rights-based recruitment process. This study is conducted by KAFA (Enough) Violence and exploitation, a Lebanese civil society organization that works on fighting all forms of violence and exploitation of women.

Resource Type

Research reports, working paper

Details

This report examines the processes and practices involved in the recruitment of migrant domestic workers (MDWs) from Nepal and Bangladesh and explores their work and living conditions in Lebanon.

MDWs began entering the Lebanese labour market in the mid-1970s, the influx creating a new labour market that was, and still is, managed by private placement agencies. The Lebanese government did not play a major role in the emergence of this lucrative market, nor did it pro-actively regulate it.It was no more than a witness to the expansion and propagation of this sector, and its consent came as merely as a reaction to its development. Private recruitment agencies in countries of origin and placement agencies in countries of destination are in charge of providing the necessary information and providing the matching services which link the requirements of the employer with the profile of the potential migrant worker, while also sorting out logistical arrangements to facilitate the migration
process. Within such a context, the rights of the workers in the country of destination depend, to a large extent, on whether there are any deficiencies in the framework regulating the migration process. This is what this report has set out to explore.

The number of  MDWs in Lebanon is estimated to be between 200,000 and 250,000, and for this study, two countries with a sizeable number of workers in Lebanon were selected. Nepal, on the one hand, prohibits the migration of female domestic workers to Lebanon, while Bangladesh has not imposed such a restriction. The scope of the report includes an examination of the recruitment and migration processes, their associated costs, as well as the work and living conditions of the workers and the possibilities and access to legal redress and compensation mechanisms. While previous studies have conducted a partial analysis, either looking into the conditions of MDWs at the country of origin or the country of destination, this study seeks to conduct a comprehensive overview of the journey from Bangladesh and Nepal to Lebanon. 

The report is published in Arabic and English in September 2014.

Contents

URL

http://www.kafa.org.lb/studies-publications/41/2/%D8%A3%D8%AD%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%85-%D9%84%D9%84%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%B9-%D8%A8%D9%8A%D9%86-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%AA%D9%82%D8%AF%D8%A7%D9%85-%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B9%D9%85%D9%84-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D9%84%D8%A8%D9%86%D8%A7%D9%86-%D8%B1%D8%AD%D9%84%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%AA
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