People are selling maids online in the Arab world and it's not OK

Someone in Lebanon listed a housekeeper "for sale" on the online marketplace OLX, drawing criticism from social media and bloggers this week.

The OLX post said: "Ethiopian maid up for relinquishment, 20 years old, has experience, can speak Arabic well, a year and half of the contract remains."

The post has since been removed from the site.

"This is what you get when your government refuses to drop the KAFALA system, an archaic law that encourages slavery and is being used as a tool of extreme exploitation and oppression," blogger Najib Mitri wrote on his site Blog Baladi.

In a statement emailed to StepFeed, OLX explained that allowing the posts on its site does not break the law. It also defended such posts saying they can "help domestic workers find suitable employment as long as they wish to stay in [a] country."

"OLX offers the migrant workers the platform of finding jobs to continue to earn a living within the country, rather than just being repatriated or sent to the local employment agencies till they find other positions," OLX said. 

"We are also aware that sponsors would prefer finding suitable positions for those who lived and supported their lives and cared for their families, rather than ending their employment in the country."

It also said that it has a full-time team working to ensure all content on the site complies with local laws.

The kafala system, which exists in different forms in the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon, essentially legally binds domestic workers to their employers and has been called "modern-day slavery" by rights groups. While some countries have taken steps to reform these laws, there's still a very long way to go before these individuals are treating fairly and equally. 

"The easy access to workers and the policies smoothing the employment process have reduced [foreign domestic workers] to commodities: they are easy to get, maintain and discard when no longer wanted," the Lebanon's Anti-Racism Movement (ARM) website says, explaining the problematic nature of Kafala in the Arab world.

Employers often confiscate workers' passports, although this is technically illegal in most countries. Workers are routinely forced to work extremely long hours with little, if any, days off. They are denied basic rights, such as the ability to travel or change jobs, and they have few legal protections.

"The system that the Lebanese government imposes on refugees and migrant workers is totally unjust," a representative from ARM previously told StepFeed, when asked about the plight of foreign workers.

The representative -- who had only revealed his first name is Tarek -- said that the majority of Lebanese "are adverse to racism because they are also exposed to injustices" from the government.  But this "doesn't compare in anyway to the injustice directed toward migrants."

Still, with more than 250,000 female domestic workers in the country, according to the International Labor Organization, many women continue to suffer under the cruelty of racist employers. Suicide rates are also high within this marginalized population.

A quick scan of OLX revealed that a few other employers have turned to the platform as well.

StepFeed found two posts regarding female workers in Oman.

One reads: "A christian maid from the Philippines, 24 years old. She has been in Oman for 3 months, this his her first time in the country. She can cook, clean, do laundry and general housework. Reason for relinquishing: she's unable to take care of young children. Amount required: 1400 riyals."

The other: "We have a Ugandan maid who speaks English and can do most housework chores."

In Lebanon, organizations like KAFA (Enough - Violence and Exploitation) and ARM are advocating on behalf of domestic and other foreign workers.

"In order to limit exploitative practices by agents and brokers, the role of the governments in managing the recruitment and placement of migrant domestic workers must be reinforced," Bernadette Daou, a program coordinator at KAFA, told Al Akhbar English.

Editors note: A previous version of this article did not include a statement from OLX, which has since been added.