Beirut / Addis Ababa — Celebrating Labor Day on Thursday, Ethiopia has officially banned all travel of its citizens to Beirut in search of jobs. The Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs disclosed.
Ethiopia passed the bill after it made a detailed study of the human rights violations and domestic violence Ethiopian migrants face behind closed doors in Beirut while on duty as maids.
"Suspending the work travel to Beirut was the only solution to minimize the human rights abuses and dangers to our citizens," said Zenebu Tadesse, deputy state minister for labor and social affairs.
During the past few years, a number of Ethiopians have been killed in Beirut by their employers.
Passed human rights records show that 67 Ethiopian women have died between 1997 and 1999 in Beirut while working. Many have never been heard of again and a many others remain difficult to trace because their employers change their Christian names to let them in to the country as Muslims.
The ministry said it would take strong action against any employment agency trying to send workers directly to Beirut or through a third country.
Every year, thousands of Ethiopian women, lured by the promise of lucrative jobs and comfortable living standards , are shipped out to Middle Eastern countries but end up being trapped in prison-like conditions.
Lebanon is the most popular destination for Ethiopian domestic servants, followed by Bahrain, Dubai and Saudi Arabia.
Estimates indicate that there are over 50,000 Ethiopians working in Beirut, mainly women who work as house maids hoping to bring change to their living conditions and their families back at home, who pray continuously for their safe return. Over 100,000 Ethiopian workers are believed to be working in the Arab countries of the Middle East.
According to Ethiopian women association, Ethiopian women in the Middle Eastern countries are facing the worst kind of human rights abuses, subjected to beatings, denied earned wages, forced to toil without sleep, raped by employers, have parts of their body seared in boiling oil by wives of their employers, grilled with hot irons and thrown out of high-rise balconies." As a result, many are driven to despair and end up being mentally sick and sometimes commit suicide.
Although Lebanon is a member of the advisory committee to the the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), it has not signed the 1951 Geneva Convention dealing with migrant workers. Lacking the normal rights of citizens to access public forms of assistance, migrants are faced with the option of running away and becoming illegal, or coping with the daily abuse. Despite pressure from labor organizations, the Lebanese governments have done nothing to address the issue.