An estimated 200,000 domestic workers, primarily from Sri Lanka, Ethiopia and the Philippines, remain essentially outside of crucial labour laws and subject to exploitation and frequent abuse by employers and agencies including non-payment of wages, forced confinement to the workplace, no time off, and verbal or physical abuse. The sponsorship system ties the worker’s residency to a specific employer, making it very hard for a domestic worker to change employers, even in cases of abuse. Once employment is terminated the worker loses residency, making it difficult to file complaints because workers’ fear detention owing to their illegal status. According to UN sources, 80 Ethiopian women have been in Tripoli Women’s Prison for over a year, accused of not having a passport, which was either taken from them when they started as domestic workers, or which they never had in the first place. Most were arrested after running away from their employers - usually because of abuses.
Between October and November alone, at least nine deaths from suicides or botched escapes were reported. As a result, in November, Nepalese authorities stopped permitting domestic workers to go to Lebanon.
During the year, the government issued a decree obliging employers to follow certain rules for domestic workers, including paying the salaries of their employees in full and giving them a day off.