BEIRUT (AP) — Dozens of domestic workers gathered outside the Ethiopian consulate in Beirut on Thursday, some inquiring about flights home, others stranded after they were abandoned by employers who claimed they could no longer afford to pay their salaries.
Some 180,000 domestic workers in Lebanon, most of them female from Ethiopia, are growing more desperate as a crippling economic and financial crisis sets in, coupled with coronavirus restrictions.
The Labor Ministry organized buses late Wednesday that transported about 35 women left stranded outside the consulate to a hotel in Beirut after they spent the day with their belongings, some of them crying. Scenes on local television prompted the ministry to take action, offering the women shelter until they could be flown out of the country. Lebanon’s airport has been shuttered since mid-March as part of measures to help step the spread of the new coronavirus.
Labor Minister Lamia Douaihy vowed on Twitter to take necessary measures against employers who commit “humanitarian violations.”
Lebanon has been hit by an unprecedented economic and financial crisis made worse by the lockdown related to the virus. The foreign currency crisis has led to many migrants not being paid for months or the value of their salaries declining by more than half. Others have lost their jobs after employers dumped them on the streets or outside their embassies.
Many are trapped, unable to go home, because they cannot afford the price of a repatriation flight or because global air travel is severely restricted.
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Image: An Ethiopian domestic worker cries as she waits with dozens of others outside the Ethiopian consulate, some inquiring about flights home, others stranded after they were abandoned by employers who claimed they could no longer afford to pay their salaries, in Hazmieh, east of Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, June 4, 2020. Some 180,000 domestic workers in Lebanon, most of them female from Ethiopia, are growing more desperate as a crippling economic and financial crisis sets in, coupled with coronavirus restrictions. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
