we have decided to assume responsibility at the national and international level. because of safety, we have decided to put an end to the rule of the president, a decision taken only with the aim of protecting the country and bringing together all the different forces. the actions undertaking yesterday happened without bloodshed. the government members and the president are being cut and safe. a safe place did. russian id, ukrainian officials on that told hawks on wednesday to the escalate tensions germany and france will be part of the meeting, which comes as nato reinforce military presence in eastern europe. the us of ordered its troops to be heightened alerts. 6 football fans of di didn't africa, cup of nations, game and the whole nation cameroon. now they were crushed in a stumpy trying to enter the stadium just outside the capital of the day. at least 19 people have been killed after fighting broke out at night carbon indonesia, west pap, or province. the building caught fire to violence, broke out between 2 rival gangs. china was ordered 2000000 residents in beijing to get tested for chrome virus that comes after a rise in infections and the chinese capital head of the start of the winter olympic games next week. britton's prime minister boris johnson is facing new allegations that he attended. another party and breach of covey drop down rules and its claim. johnson's wife threw him ab surprised birthday party during the 1st lot done in june 2020. more than 20 australian sailors on a military vessel on its way to talk to her have tested positive cove. 19. yet your mas adelaide is taking her to tongue after a volcanic eruption earlier this month, i'll stray, says it's working to keep the ship at sea and ensure there's no threat to target people. it's been at the forefront of relief efforts to deliver supplies to the island nation. those are the headlines are packed with more news at half, not here on al jazeera. next, it's the stream. do stay with us. war in afghanistan now, will non taliban figures make up a part of that in you can only port within the caliber with inside story packet. i frank assessment the div headline subscribe now. however you listen to broadcast ah yeah. lisa, i mean i don't see when things are not easy, so be a good so good or maybe we'll just leave her there in a . 5 while lastly 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 singing about the hardships of being a domestic work in lebanon. and that is our show today on the stream. the way that foreign domestic work as a treaty or mistreated in lebanon, let me introduce you to our panel that got to unpack the situation for us, ruler alene, 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 less. the guy are the strategic program coordinator of the domestic workers federation, which is a global federation representing over $590000.00 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 of us. hi everyone, my name is an issue. i'm a french type. so rougher and normally be in the route where i focus on subject of migration, exiled and cultural heritage, yet to have you an idea. welcome to the screen, please introduce yourself. try global audience. thanks so much for having me. my name as i am a suit and i'm the lebanon researchers are 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 the 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 entered 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. oh, 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 is in the 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 litigated processes that would be more accessible to domestic workers in order to access just this. something that is not available for them today. i at 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 a, your thoughts? i mean, i think that there are problems on multiple levels. a lot of people, when they see videos like this, we offer video that we just saw. can 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. so even if an employer is a good employer, they are still participating and exploitative an abusive employer, 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 lebanon. and those are, you know, less severe 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 domestic workers. and in this 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 deported 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 workers from the very high barriers case 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 and arabic language is that not all migrate domestic workers understand as well as often without the presence of any lawyer representing the migrant domestic worker. and we did our human rights, which actually did a study of over a 100 cases involving migrant domestic workers, either asked defendants and be there is all for quite shocking. we found that except in cases of very, very severe physical, verbal, or sexual abuse that's backed by overwhelming medical evidence. court usually did not, did not convict employers of any criminal charges, including for forced confinement for non payment of wages, for verbal abuse. and even in the very, very, very small number of cases where the court did convict an employer of criminal charges due to physical abuse, micro domestic worker, the punishments were not commensurate with the gravity of the crime. right? so for example, so i just to mention one case that stone is in my mind, many years later there was a case of an employer who beat her worker with insights of the workers and the she . the worker then was 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 didn't result in a conviction of the employer. and i want to printing the work that you've been doing. the documentary was documenting photographs that you've been doing with foreign domestic workers 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 in particular. 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. be pleasure. 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 month documenting these women, the one on the beach was actually the 1st day where they learned beds. be ruth hi, the beach kohls ram 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, 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, i want to start on the beach because the sleeping quarters of what you would expect to see when people are not treated like real human beings. let's take a look at the sequence. tell us more. so this one was actually taken in the neighborhood at that against 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 she mattresses on the floor. by the time i was taking, just make sure they were actually helping. and the rescuing more and more we meant 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 were dropping like their employers on the street. they were dumping them in front of their embassies. and so those girls were just roaming the streets in order to find the shelter. and lucy, among other women, were picking them up one by one to, you know, find them at home. and so they were shifting at the beginning, but you know, at the end of, of the project there were like, over 15 like several houses that tell you how increasing the numbers were federal union women that were rescued when i want to play you the story and the comment 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 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 it's making us in virginia and i was treated as shown. so we don't have this in the foods. we don't cousins die, letty. we don't have money. we don't have anything. absolutely, this has made a bad situation. even worse, domestic 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 barriers in front of access to livelihood in front of them since last year, which was the 1st time that we've discussed the kenyan 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 any 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 the immigration processes for blue collar workers to come into the country and occupy these jobs and domestic work is not covered by any law. so there isn't a provision that with 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 then 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 file system and 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 than if you're all the way out is by accepting life itself. then, of course says, responsibility of are the a cappella system. that is not providing any litigate of protest 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's sponsorship, for instance, where you have a contract with your employer. that is all you have. they may loan you out to a relative. they may decide you have to work 7 days a week. you have no nor more labor protections. there has been efforts to change that, but that's the situation of tactical situation right now. so on youtube, we have augustine asking 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 the lebanon, but throughout the middle east. what did the international labor organization do to address this issue? and i a, go ahead. this is 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 migrant domestic workers and various countries across the middle east. however, another non is becoming an outlier on this issue because countries such as golf and the gulf, i got 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, and that there is no law governing my goods. domestic workers presence in the country, migrant domestic workers are excluded from the labor law. and there isn't another law governing our 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 co 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 an arabic. so my go to mr. brokers are signing a contract that they cannot read or understand. i'm this contract itself fails to meet international standards and that it doesn't adequately provide cases of forced labor and human trafficking and other kinds of the juices that we document on a regular basis. so, yes, a, just to the corral swear, 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 corp the country. and then go ahead and i think it's very important to talk about leaving in as well. because besides what i was mentioning, the current economy crisis right now makes completely 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 an evaluation 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 yet, we shall see migrant workers coming legally or illegally. we can live in and i'm asking that's wanting, that is worth really headlining in comparison to the rest of the, of the countries where the capitalist system exist. i want to bring, and i'd also like to just comment on the 2nd question. yeah. okay. and also the flow are the reasons that keep the good fellow system running. so in lebanon, there is a compound crisis, but the way that we formulate our problems also shed light on the solution and frequency. we think of the profile of 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 or 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 health care for the elder di or 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's not spending money on them. and not only that, but it also gets paid through the system because recruitment agencies make money. 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 fost ways to words creation of 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 new 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 is 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 was to corridor with the deputy director of this organization. this is what she told us, many blues i'm, she being those who are inside the house without paying their salary. and those are being stuck in the house for years and there is no one to predict or to send them home, even if they all have money to pay for those who are good. they should have sent a home just they are not doing that. and all we know the anna, even carrying out the door. mr. quakers and i don't think this will change because it's become wor, steve, by the not having the money and everything. i love seeing the cigarette, it 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, they're relying on themselves, but i guess most of the we men also relied on other migrant music workers. so for example, to women that are 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 it is born 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 mrc workers. and there was really important is that gonna change or do they see that the situation is going to get better? unfortunately? like, i can say that from what i see that i have no choice. you know, it's a very be to switch feeling like the ones who can go home because every batch ration go there with a 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 i want to, and i want to bring to you $22.00 extra thoughts here. i wanted to ask mom who's on youtube is taking all of them from leggy leave, like self. asthma says what better ways are they to put an end to this menace? and then early as sama who works in advocacy for this area asked 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 ruler about domestic workers in lebanon. and their plight ruler will i be in 2 years time talking to you again about domestic walkers, 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 out 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 exclaimed america from the labor code. and that would be one way forward. all right, so not that somewhat to be done ruler eileen, idea, 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. me on you a february on a just, you know, china host the winter olympics, but we'll diplomatic boycott and the corona vibrates. overshadow the rigorous debates an unflinching question. up front, cut through the headlights to challenge conventional wisdom. al jazeera keeps you up to date this nation. tackle the overcome barrier. a mid continued vaccine inequality. 11 east 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