The Ministry of Labor has worked covertly, in coordination with owners of recruitment agencies, on a draft Standard Unified Contract and has excluded from the discussions the domestic workers and the NGOs who have a long experience in this context.
Article 7 of the Labor Law, which excludes domestic workers, must be abolished.
The Ministry of Labor is set to release an amended version of the Standard Unified Contract (SUC) which, in theory, intends to regulate the working relationship between migrant domestic workers and their sponsors (employers). However, the contract is only one piece of the Kafala system and, due to lack of any enforcement mechanism, it is arguably the least important piece.
Workers are workers, regardless of nationality or profession. No worker’s rights should depend on the goodwill or generosity of their individual employer. Our silence in the face of injustice against any worker paves the way for injustice against all workers. This year, we produced a series of short videos about the rights of all workers in Lebanon regardless of nationality, race, or labor sector.
In three unrelated incidents, three Migrant Domestic Workers in Lebanon have died or been seriously injured in the last week. The Migrant Domestic Workers Coordination Consortium (MDWCC) and other civil society NGOs demand rigorous and serious investigations into the three cases and in all cases of Migrant Domestic Workers’ death or serious injury.
At the Anti-Racism Movement (ARM), we are constantly working on a multitude of different activities and initiatives. Most of our activities are only possible with the help of dedicated and passionate volunteers who work in collaboration with our core team.
The Anti-Racism Movement (ARM) was launched in 2010 as a grassroots collective by young Lebanese feminist activists in collaboration with migrant workers and migrant domestic workers.
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