Lebanon just said it shut down 200 domestic worker agencies, but activists are skeptical

Lebanon's caretaker labor ministry announced this week that it had shutdown nearly 200 domestic worker recruitment agencies. And while many on the Internet hailed this as a step in the right direction, some local activists are skeptical. 

A statement from the ministry quoted caretaker Labor Minister Sejaan Azzi as saying: "This profession deals with humans and not things," according to The Daily Star. 

It also said that there are more than 700 domestic worker recruitment agencies in Lebanon and only 441 meet legal standards set by the syndicate. 

Local activists working with Lebanon's migrant community want to give the ministry the benefit of the doubt. Yet they are skeptical based on the ministry's history of inaction and blatant racism, particularly under the leadership of Azzi.

"This is a good but very late and very small step forward," Farah Salka, the director of Lebanon's Migrant Community Center and a founder of the Anti-Racism Movement, told StepFeed.

She questioned why no list of the names of organizations and owners was released. 

"We have no proof this is accurate," she said.  

Salka also pointed out that a similar announcement was made by the ministry in April, with statistics that don't match up to the ones cited in this week's statement.

In April, Azzi announced that more than 50 agencies had been shut down and that 573 continued to operate in the country. This would mean that somehow, either legally or illegally, at least 127 new agencies have appeared since then.

Salka also called into question whether moves to enforce standards on agencies is a serious step forward. 

"The syndicate's standards are not even the right way to go," she said, explaining that these do not protect the rights of foreign workers. They also further entrench a kafala system, where workers are legally bound to their Lebanese employers.

In response to Azzi's statement calling migrant laborers "humans", she said: "It's a very funny statement," given that he is the "No. 1 champion of dehumanizing migrant workers." 

Salka claims that whenever civil society groups have tried to address the serious issues with the current system, Azzi has consistently refused to allow a migrant worker to even sit at the same table as him to share their perspective.

"There are no laws that protect or safeguard the rights of domestic workers," she said, saying that there are numerous options and ideas put forward by civil society groups to make concrete positive changes. 

Azzi has all but ignored these suggestions during his tenure, consistently denying the legal creation of a workers' union to represent the community.

There are about 250,000 migrant workers in Lebanon according to the International Labor Organization. 

Suicide and death rates are high among the community, although official statistics are hard to come by. Workers are often forced to work more than 12 hours a day with only one, if any, days off during the week. Many employers confiscate workers' passports and sometimes even refuse to pay monthly salaries. 

"We are not humans in Lebanon. We are treated like animals or maybe a machine or a robot that they can charge to work,” a female Ethiopian worker told Al Jazeera last year. ”I’m not treated as a human. I’m not treated like a woman.”

Although many activists and workers aren't betting that things will improve soon, Salka said she hopes that the labor ministry's recent announcement could possibly amount to real change.

"This is a great step theoretically. But it's really hard to believe this is going anywhere," she said.