gathering steam across the country, we'll see how that conway continues as they roll their way into ottawa. come this weekend. the world's biggest, most powerful and most expensive space telescope has arrived at his destination one and a half 1000000 kilometers from earth. nasa says it will bring begin of firing up the 10000000000 donna james webb, observatories, infrared detectives. ah, clo again, i'm for the battle with the headlines on al jazeera, the spokesman for the un secretary general has condemned a cool in volcano fossil and voice concern for the president. the military says it sees power and deposed, present rock cavalry was whereabouts are unknown. secretary girls following developments had burkina faso with deep concern. he's particularly worried about the whereabouts and safety of president rock, mark christian robbery,

as well as the worsening security situation. following the crew carried out on january 23rd by sections of the armed forces. the secretary journal strongly condemns any attempt to take over of government by the force of arms. the european union says it's ready to impose never before seen sanctions if russia attacks ukraine. russia has math, an estimated 100000 troops near the border, and nato is expanding its military presence in eastern europe. the kremlin accuses it of escalating tensions. the pentagon me while says it has 8 and a half 1000 troops on heightened dialect. in some cases, some of these forces were already on a, a heightened posture, readiness to deploy posture, and the secretary decided to make it even more a shortened tether even more. so in some cases, units would go from say, 10 days prepared to deploy. now there, at 5 days,

at least 6 people have been killed in a stampede outside a football game. in cameroon, it happened that a stadium just north, the capital. yeah. one day fans appear to have russia stadium before kick off, where cameras was about to play cameras in the africa cup of nations. at least 3 people have been killed in the latest protest against military rule in sudan, the central committee of sudanese doctor says they were shot dead by security forces will fight live rounds and tear gas. thousands of truck drivers from across canada are converging on the capital ottawa to protest against a federal vaccine mandate for travel across the u. s. they say the policy hurts businesses and drivers, livelihoods. those are the headlines on al jazeera. i'll be back with more news right after the stream stay with us. february on a da 0, china host the winter olympics,

but will diplomatic boycott and the corona virus overshadow the event. rigorous debate them unflinching questions. up front cuts through the headlights to challenge conventional wisdom. al jazeera keeps you up to date as mation, tackle the over chrome barrier amid continued vaccine inequality. one 0, one east investigates how breakfast the pandemic and changing tastes are causing the great british curry crisis. the african union hold the 35th ordinary session, the 1st with israel as an observer state with several nations campaigning against israel status and person issues across the continent. there is much to disgust february on a jazeera ah yeah, lisa, i mean the, the way things are not easy to be a good,

so good or maybe. well. 1 by and job yeah, leave her in. there will be a . 5 a, he's just been listening to lucy, the lead singer of a group of domestic workers in lebanon court, the united sisters. lucy was thinking about the hardships of being a domestic work at a lebanon, and that is our show today on the stream. the way that foreign domestic workers are treated or mistreated in lebanon, let me introduce you to our panel. they're going to unpack the situation for us ruler eileen idea. so good to have you here in the stream. really,

please say hello and introduce yourself to international audience. tell them who you are and what you do. thank you for having me here. i am to list the guy or the strategic program coordinator of the domestic workers federation, which is a global federation representing over 590000 domestic workers around the world. nice to have you a lean film, the video that you just watch that the united states to selina welcome to the stream. please introduce yourself to have us. hi everyone. my name is an initial, i'm a french type, so refer and normally be in the root. we're, i focus on subject of migration, exiled, and cultural heritage. yet to have you an idea. welcome to the screen. please introduce yourself track global audience. thanks so much for having me. my name as i am a suit and i'm the lebanon researchers for human rights watch are so best and boot . all right, ladies, guests. good to have you. we have so much expertise on our show today. please use

it if you're on youtube. the comment section is right here. ask questions, share your concerns. i'll do my best to get all of that into today's program. i am going to start with a really disturbing video, and this video is of a domestic worker being dragged through the streets of lebanon. it went viral last week, have a look at my laptop here. you will see exactly why i ruler when you saw this video. this is not the 1st time we've seen domestic workers being abused on video from lebanon. but when you saw this video and there has been some campaigning about, we need to be looking at what is happening in a system that allows foreign workers to come to a country and then have no label rights whatsoever. so you saw that video and you

thought what? absolutely. what you are mentioning air is the key actually to the dismantlement of the co follow. we frequently think about it as if it were a labor law, but in fact it's an immigration system. so you have the branch of the government that is responsible for the policing and surveillance, which is the ministry of interior governing employment relationships. it is not meant to govern the welfare of the workers. so such videos are frequently observed and whenever we see them, there is a little bit of media attention around the subject. however, because it isn't a survivor herself or the victim herself, that needs to file a complaint. frequently, domestic workers are not able to do so because they fear the repercussions of such an action and the perpetrator remains unpunished. so we called for certain litigate of processes that would be more accessible to domestic workers in

order to access just this. something that is not available for them today. i am. often when we talk about the catholicism, we talk about domestic work as in lebanon. the pushback is it was that was a bad person. that was that irresponsible behavior. not everybody abuse is their domestic workers. i just want to share this tweet with you here. this is from osman . he knew we were doing this show. he says, the reason why there was so much abuse in lebanon with domestic work as is because they don't see domestic work as, as human beings. i of your thoughts. i mean i think that there are problems on multiple levels. a lot of people, when they see videos like the speed awful video that we just saw tend to just dismiss it as a bad employer or, you know, a few bad apples in the system. however, the message that we're really trying to get across is that the system itself is inherently abusive. but even if an employer is a good employer,

they are still participating and exploitative and abusive employ your worker relationship whereby workers are denied most basic. right. and that's considered normal, so things like forced confinement in the home, things like confiscating identity documents, the worker as soon as she comes into nothing on things like, not allowing them any rest days or even best hours after and being expected to be on call all the time, these are things that are considered normal under the follow system and love and on i'm, those are, you know, less to fear than the abusive video that we just saw, but still make up a very exploitative and very abusive system that leads to such, such really awful videos and i want to pick up on something that my colleague real, i just mentioned about the lack of access to justice or my get domestic workers. i

mean the case what happened in the video in the video just made the rounds on social media. it generates a lot of outrage and immediately the perpetrator of the abuse was called in for interrogation. however, less than 24 hours later he was released, having only paid a small fine, and then the worker was reported a few days later. unfortunately, this is not unique. we've witnessed time and time again. the way that the justice system is not responsive to the needs of my goods. and i, workers from the very high barriers they place on the ability of migrant domestic workers to file complaints. in the 1st place. so then the fact that most of the procedures are carried out in arabic language is that not all micro domestic workers understand, as well as i'm often without the presence of any lawyer representing the migrant domestic worker. and we did that human rights watch actually did

a study of over $100.00 cases involving migrant domestic workers, either asked plaintiffs and defendants. and i think there is also quite shocking. we found that except in cases of very, very severe physical, verbal, or sexual abuse that's backed by overwhelming medical evidence. quotes usually did not result that did not convict employers of any criminal charges, including for forced confinement for non payment of wages for a verbal abuse. and even in the very, very, very small number of cases where the courts did convict an employer with criminal charges due to physical abuse. if the migrant domestic worker, the punishments were not commensurate with the gravity of the crime. right. so for example, i just to mention one case that still, you know, is in my mind, many years later, there was a case of an employer who beats her worker within sight of the workers embassy. the

worker then fainted and was taken to a hospital and the hospital, the doctor saw signs of beating on her body as well as very big bruises and a criminal court. sometimes the employer to 15 days in jail. that was it. and that was heralded as a success, and i've been on at the time because it did results in a conviction of the employer. i want to printing the work that you've been doing a documentary what the documentary photograph that you've been doing with foreign domestic work. because in lebanon, because to me it seems like there's a huge empathy gap between the way that they are treated and the way they should be treated. there were 3 pictures and meticulous you wanted to show us. i'm going to show them to our audience and you can tell us the stories and why you wanted our audience to see these pictures. let's start. okay. on the beach because you're oh, okay. so all right,

so that teacher is ashley. i'm kind of like among the last ones of the series and it is after a month are documenting these women. and the one on the beach was actually the 1st day where they learned that babe ruth had a beach cold from that, that abida. and that they could actually go out there to juice have some, you know, like fresh air have some like space, good dancing, and just have fun. there was the 1st day of holiday for them. and for me, there was a magical day for me, it is also, it really captures really well, the spirit of the series and that your angle because it translates the strength, the really, the brazilians, but also the, the beauty of these women. and that's the thing is,

is something they saw in class to, to show as well. that's why i want to start on the beach because the sleeping quarters are what you would expect to see when people are not treated like real human beings. let's take a look at sequence. tell us more. so this one was actually taken in the neighborhood at that a gauge dd, which is encouraged neighborhood in, in that the roots. and when i met those women, they were in a similar house and they were at 15 of them living together. and. and you know, basically like sleeping with a few mattresses on the floor. by the time i was taking, just make sure they were actually helping and rescreen more and more women everyday from the streets. because at that time, in 2020, there were as do sort of the clinical labs in lebanon. and so a lot of employers where dropping like their employers on the street there were dumping them in front of their embassies. and so those girls were just roaming the

streets in order to find a shelter. and lucy, among other women, were picking them up one by one to find them at home. and so there were shifting at the beginning that you know, at the end of the project, they were like over 15, like several houses that to tell you how increasing the numbers were federal union women that were rescued route i want to play you the story in the coming from a domestic worker cord, julia, she same cost face a little bit earlier, talking about the circumstances in lebanon, the economic crises, in lebanon that has made her situation even was he, she is ruler. and then if you could respond immediately of the back of the video in this done, the domain broker in the bundle news is a really all, most of us is very, very, very never situation is a, no, we don't have

a disorder still to survive every day. it's very difficult because of the chinese economy last and conveyed this thinks this is making us in virginia and i was just as shown. so we don't have this in the foods. we don't cousin study, we don't have money, we don't have anything. absolutely, this has made a bad situation. even worse, the metric workers have been precarious because also they occupy the various identities that are precarious in the power hierarchies of this world. they are migrant women. they are women from the global south. they are indigenous women. they are some times the sole breadwinners for their families. they are mothers. there are multiple things that would put the barriers in front of access to livelihood in front of them since last year, which was the 1st time that we've discussed the canyon women's protests in lebanon . today they are again protesting in front of their consulate in order to be taking

back home and to be repatriated. so the situation keeps getting worse, and it is not getting better and provisions and the domestic work sector in general . as a, as they had mentioned, we have the ministry of interior, which is the policing and surveillance branch of the government governing but immigration processes for blue collar workers to come into the country and occupy these jobs. and domestic work is not covered by any loss. so there isn't a provision that was grant accessibility to any form of mitigation of justice. so they are left alone. and we have witnessed an increase in layoffs and increase and racism, and again, a phobia domestic workers and migrant workers being blamed for the crisis at large being treated as vectors of the virus. we have also seen domestic workers and migrant workers being lynched and dying. that, that are deemed unnatural and sometimes dubbed as suicides. what i would like to say is that under the compiler system, any death is the responsibility of the system and which we should all be

accountable for. if we do not reform the system, because if you're only way out of a job, if you're not able to quit, if you're not able to leave your employer and your employer is able to charge you with up scolding, which is language that we borrow from the slavery, then if you're on the way out, is by exiting life itself, then of course does the responsibility of the governor system that is not providing any litigator fraud is processes or social protections for the workers that it should i seek after the have a couple of comments here on, on youtube, and i'm going to share these comments with you. i'm the co follow system is, is a system of gardeners ship and it sponsorship, for instance, where you have a contract with your employer. that is all you have the main loan you out to a relative. they may decide you have to work 7 days a week. you have no normal labor protections. there has been efforts to change that,

but that's the situation of tactical situation right now. so on youtube we have, oh, gusting. ask in this. why single out lebanon? the co follow system is used in all middle eastern countries. it's a whole continent where domestic workers are and can be abused. ab c says, why is this system still use? not just in lebanon, but throughout the middle east. what did the international labor organization do to address this issue? and i had go ahead this, this question about, it's not just lebanon. and your response is what? it's true that it's not just lebanon and that you know, human rights watch regularly documents abuse of my good domestic workers in various countries across the middle east. however, another non is becoming an outlier on this issue. because countries such as gulf from the gulf, i gulf countries as well as countries like jordan has started implementing reforms . now, whether those reforms go far enough,

we don't think that they do. but lebanon is an outlier on this issue, in that there is no law governing migrate. domestic workers presence in the country, migrant domestic workers are excluded from the labor law. and there isn't another law governing their presence only lebanon and all martin to middle eastern countries that receive a large number of margaret domestic workers and still don't have any law protecting or regulating the presence of my good domestic workers in the country. so all that they have, as you mentioned in terms of legal documents, is the contract that they sign with their employer. often this contract is only presented in arabic, so my good semester brokers are signing a contract that they cannot treat or understand. i'm the contract itself sales to meet the international standards, and that it doesn't adequately prevent cases of forced labor and human trafficking and other kinds of uses that we document on a regular basis. so yes, just to the cur, elsewhere but lebanon is more and more,

becoming an outlier by stubbornly refusing to implement any changes to the follow system that would improve the lives of my good enough to corporate country. and then go ahead. yeah, and i think it's very important to talk about leaving in as well because he said that i was mentioning the current economy crisis right now makes copy be irrelevant . the fact of even bringing micro domestic workers you choose, let's say that like, you know, normally each day or page there will be paid $200.00. but now you have to the valuation that will not, that their salary there will be paid will not even be wars like $30.00 or $40.00. so there is no, there is absolutely no point for them to be coming in even and, and yet we shall see migrant workers coming legally or illegally with him live in. and i think that's wanting, that is more, it's really height lining in comparison to the rest of the, of the countries where the capitalist system exist. i want to bring. absolutely.

and i'd also like to just call them from the 2nd question. yeah, i have both of these are the reasons that keep the gala system running. so in lebanon, there is a compound crisis, but the way that we formulate our problems also shows life on the solution. and frequently we think of the system as something that is happening in the gulf countries and in the middle east as something that is purely cultural. however, there is an economic component behind this entire system. this system is beneficial for the one percent that own everything that are the people that we fight in every country pretty much. so for example, not only does the government save money on not creating institutions for care institutions that would provide a health care for the elderly year, for people with disability or for children or in general. but it also displaces this labor on domestic workers that are not protected by any provision whatsoever.

so it is not spending money on them. and not only that, but it also gets paid through the system because recruitment agencies make money on the visa provisions, the insurance that domestic workers and employers pay. all of this brings income within the government and within recruitment agencies and even to middle men. so it creates employment possibilities and it creates a pathways to words creation of a generation of income. but these pathways are not inclusive and also the country does not allow for domestic workers to unionize. for example, we see unions even for employers of domestic workers, for example, in lebanon. we have a, an organization that works on the protection of the rights of the family and the worker which represents women, employers of domestic workers. and we have a union that represents the interest of recruitment agencies, but domestic workers are not allowed under the law to be able to have one voice and

represent themselves. and the parts of these negotiations that are crucial for their livelihood and safety and security ok rule. i'm going to bring in some more voices of domestic work as well. his former domestic work. i have a look here on my laptop. this organization was set up for domestic workers in lebanon, with domestic workers in lebanon, so their own solutions to their own challenges. earlier, we had a word with sticker ada, with the deputy director of this organization. this is what she told us. many blues, i'm keeping those who are inside the house without paying their salary, and those guys being stuck in the house for years. and there is no one to produce or to send them home even if they don't have money to pay for those who are good. they should have sent them home. we just, they are not being asked all we know the, i'm not even kidding. i would do mr. quakers and i don't think this would change

because it's become wor, stable id not having money and everything. i love seeing the cigarette, i says, i don't think this will change. and then earlier, julia said, i'm in a rubbish situation and lean from your interaction with the domestic workers. were they able to organize themself and say, okay, we have to fix this for ourselves. of course they had no choice. absolutely. not only you were there relying on themselves, but i guess most of the we men also relied on other migrant music workers. so for example, the women that have followed from sterling on we're in contact with acknowledge now we're in contact with other women from other countries. so they could help each other. so what was really important for me as well was to show the bone of silly, very te, meaning that in a state of oppression from the state, instead of oppression from the employers. those women cool get help from like

other migrant music workers. and there was really important is that gonna change or do they seem that the situation is going to get better? unfortunately? like, i can say that from what i see that they have no choice. you know, it's a very betus with feeling like the ones who can go home because every by creation go there we, there really be their sweet feeling knowing that they will bring a lot of shame, knowing that they will bring a lot of and deadman because they didn't they, they were coming back home with empty pockets. and, and i want to, i want to bring in 222 extra thoughts here. i want to get them asthma, who's on youtube, just taking on from, from where you leave, like self. asthma says, what better ways are they to put in an end to this madness? and then early as sama who was seeing advocacy for this area. aust, this and suggesting things here and things will change only if the government holds employers accountable for set practices to to put in the

system under the wrongs that migrant workers have had to live through in the country for decades. 2 years ago, i was speaking to a ruler about domestic workers in lebanon, and their plight ruler will i be in 2 years time talking to you again about to west, to walk us in lebanon and their plight in a sentence wrap us up. i hope that we would be talking about a brighter future, or is some provisions that are taken by the government in order to improve the lives of domestic workers. one way to do this is to dismantle the article number 7 from the lebanese labor law that exclaim records from the labor code. and that would be one way forward. all right, so that, that some work to be done ruler, eileen, iowa, and youtube calling to thanks so much for being part of the day. shy, appreciate you. i will leave you with a voice is the united system we are calling on you and me

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