Siria - Migrant domestic workers at risk (2012)

Migrant worker agencies are closely regulated. There are some 17,000 foreign domestic workers in Syria. The law sets out requirements such as an adequate salary and proper method of payment, social security coverage, suitable working conditions, annual leave, clothing, food, medicine, standard working contracts and other entitlements and benefits. In addition it puts the responsibility for providing a safe working environment onto the agency. However illegal recruiters still hire migrants, primarily Filipinos, as domestic staff. At the end of the year, many migrants were awaiting repatriation from the conflict in Syria, a process reportedly made more problematic by the refusal of the government to accept that the situation in Syria is anything but ‘normal’.