Daily Star staff
Saturday, December 05, 2009
Victims of abusive partners display work in effort to break taboo
By Dalila Mahdawi
Daily Star staff
Thursday, December 03, 2009
“At the beginning, it wasn’t easy to go deep inside myself and show what was hurting,” said Tala, who took five weeks to start shooting photographs she felt truly represented her feelings. “When you have good memories, you want to remember them. When you have bad memories, you’d rather forget.”
While they reveal the experiences of only 10 women, the exhibition’s photographs bring into relief the experience of many more Lebanese women who have or are living through domestic violence.
“Before I got married, I thought I was a strong and free person,” said Layla. “After marriage, I was imprisoned.”Tala agreed: “Everything [you do] is limited – what you are going to wear, where you are going, even your political views he decides.”
This excellent IPS story by Suad Hamada takes a look at life for pregant women with HIV in Bahrain:
Umbassil* is unlike other engaged women. Instead of planning her wedding she is wondering where she will have her baby. She is not pregnant but she knows that Bahrain’s maternity hospitals will not admit her because she is HIV positive.
The 26 year old who refuses to allow HIV to stop her from living her life to the fullest, is bothered by the prospect of being forced to deliver her baby in a country other than her own.
‘I have come to terms with artificial insemination and caesarean section (C-section) to protect my future husband and baby from contracting the virus, but I cannot accept (that I have) to deliver far away from my country and family members,’ she told IPS.
Umbassil contracted the virus a few months ago from her previous fiancée who initiated unprotected sex. The two were married according to Muta’a or the temporary marriage custom prevalent in many Arab countries, which does not have legal sanction but is socially accepted.
She discovered her HIV status only after she underwent an HIV/AIDS test, which is a compulsory procedure for the government to acknowledge a marriage.
‘It (sex without condoms) is a selfish act by most infected husbands who don’t consider the health and well-being of their wives,’ comments Dr Somaya Al Jowder, director of the National Programme of the Sexually Transmitted Diseases. All Bahraini citizens infected with HIV are treated free under the government-run programme.
A total of 42 women like Umbassil have tested positive in Bahrain after unprotected sex with their infected fiancées or husbands.
Unfortunately, says Al Jowder, most infected people here do not disclose their HIV/AIDS status for fear of rejection.
In Bahrain, there is a lot of ignorance around the disease, even among health professionals, she told IPS. Doctors refuse to do an invasive C-section for HIV positive women, even though it reduces the risk of their babies contracting the virus. But hospitals do admit them for normal deliveries.
Infected Bahraini women face far more discrimination than the men who are responsible for bringing HIV into homes in this patriarchal society.
‘There are 180 living HIV/AIDS patients, including 42 women, and they are few compared with Bahrain’s population that exceeded 1 million at the end of 2008. Most of the women contracted the virus through sexual relations mainly with their infected husbands,’ Al Jowder said in an interview.
‘We advice the females to not conceive and tell her about the best family planning methods, but if they insist, then we monitor their pregnancies and put them on medication (AZT) to save the babies,’ she explains. Pregnant women are prescribed the drug, which is administered free for all Bahraini citizens, from the fourth month of pregnancy.
HIV positive mothers delivered more than 10 healthy babies naturally in the last 20 years. In five cases the women were not on AZT. The drug reduces to 2 percent the chances of babies contracting the infection from their mothers.
Umbassil has been told that the best maternity facilities for HIV infected pregnant women are available in Egypt and Lebanon. But she is worried about how she and her fiancée would be able to afford the high cost of treatment.
So far, she has kept her HIV status a secret from everybody except her current fiancée and therapy and medical groups. ‘It is hard for me to hide such a horrible fact, but I have no option as my in-laws might force my fiancée to dump me,’ she says.
Fear of social prejudice has forced Umali, an AIDS activist ‘outside my country’ from publicising her 15-year-old HIV status. She has not told her friends or relatives in case they refuse to let her into their homes.
Her husband, a reformed drug addict who campaigns, like her, for Bahrain’s HIV/AIDS community in international fora, infected her.
‘I’m an AIDS-fighting activist outside my country as there I feel free to fight for my right and defend HIV/AIDS patients. At home I have to put up with maltreatment and ignorance,’ says Umali.
She says she is very close to her sisters ‘but they don’t eat anything I make or from my dishes for fear of infection,’ she confides. ‘It hurts when the people dearest to you don’t accept a glass of water from you.’
Social prejudice is not the only problem for Shafiqa who got the virus from her late husband 14 years ago. The lack of sensitivity from people who should know better bothers her more, she says, giving the example of a laboratory where she goes for a blood test regularly.
‘We have to check the level of the virus in our blood regularly, so many lab specialists refuse to take our blood because we are HIV/AIDS patients, although they are wearing gloves all the times,’ she told IPS.
Shafiqa says that if medical professionals are unaware that HIV/AIDS patients are more at risk from infections contracted from so-called normal people because of their weak immune systems, how can ordinary people know any better.
The Bahrain government, through the National Programme of the Sexually Transmitted Diseases, is planning to draft a law to protect the rights of HIV/ AIDS patients, including women, and eliminate discrimination.
*All names used are pseudonyms to protect the women interviewed.
By Dalila Mahdawi
Daily Star staff
Monday, November 30, 2009
“The ban … is a necessary emergency step in the face of an alarming rise in the number of suicides by domestic workers in Lebanon,” said Fatima Gomar, editor of Migrant-Rights.org. “There is a growing understanding among Asian governments that they need to step up and bar their citizens from working in countries where their rights are not protected.”
“Passport retention can be a tool to hold workers in exploitative and/or difficult work conditions,” said Azfar Khan, senior migration specialist at the International Labor Organization’s Regional Office for the Arab States. “Despite our best efforts the situation seems to be going from bad to worse.”
The Himalayan Times said the ban was also influenced by the failure of Nepalese recruitment agencies to fulfill promises to establish shelters and to monitor their clients’ treatment by calling them every fortnight. It added nine Nepalese migrants had committed suicide in Lebanon since March this year.
You can listen to me talking about Lebanon’s architectural heritage and transformation, on the BBC’s From our Own Correspondent program last week. You can also read it (unedited) below:
Dalila Mahdawi in Beirut
They wake me up early every morning without fail. The construction workers in the lot behind my house bang away at steel, shift concrete blocks and yell instructions at one another. Workers on the other side of the street soon join in, busying themselves with the demolition of a building.
Beirut has for so long been synonymous with conflict and destruction. But now it’s a city in rapid transition, changing into a modern and sleek metropolis. In almost every neighborhood, the sound of building or demolition is constant, ringing out as regularly as a heartbeat.
Lebanon is well versed in destruction – a fifteen year civil war ending in 1990 saw hundreds of thousands die or disappear. Many buildings became sniper towers and battle grounds between warring militias. A war with Israel in 2006 also saw large swathes of the country reduced to rubble.
The conflicts have left behind a vast number of shambolic buildings in need of demolition or renovation. But they have also provided an unprecedented opportunity for construction companies and investors to transform the country’s very character.
The current stability has encouraged previously cautious investors, as well as expatriate Lebanese hoping to reconnect with their country, to put up big money for real estate projects. It seems demand for housing has never been higher, and so the pock-marked or low-rise buildings are torn down … and the fancy apartments are bought up even before they are built.
But in the frenzied rush to reconstruct, many structures of architectural interest or historical importance are also falling victim to the wrecker’s ball. Fifty years ago, the Beirut skyline was made up of low-rise apartment blocks and picturesque stone houses. Those have quickly given way to impersonal glass and concrete tower blocks.
On my street alone, a total of seven buildings have disappeared in recent years, including some real treasures – a 1950s art deco apartment building and two smaller houses that were at least a couple of centuries old. Soon, only the older residents will remember what this area used to look like.
Not everyone in Lebanon is quietly accepting the architectural transformation of their country.
Nestled in the lush Chouf Mountains, the charming village of Deir Al-Qamar, with its 17th and 18th century stone houses is proof that modernization and architectural heritage can find common ground.
The village boasts some of the best-preserved buildings in the country, including a mosque from 1493, winding stepped alleys, the palace of a former Ottoman governor, a restored merchants inn, and a 16th century emir’s palace. The local municipality hopes to preserve the area’s architecture by stipulating that today’s house builders must use traditional limestone brick, and red tiles for the roofs.
Meanwhile, a synagogue in downtown Beirut badly damaged by Israeli shelling is being refurbished after receiving donations both from Lebanese Jews and the international community. It is one of only a few remaining Jewish sites left in the country.
A few activists have also drawn attention to the need to preserve buildings associated with the Civil War. If all signs of war are erased, it makes it all that much easier to repeat the violence, the activists argue. One of these passionate people is architect Mona Hallak, who is largely behind the saving of one of Beirut’s true architectural delights.
The Barakat Building, a magnificent four story Art Nouveau apartment block built in the 1920s, was transformed into a militia headquarters during the civil war because of its strategically important location on the front line between divided East and West Beirut. Every floor had large, stained-glass windows offering views of the streets below, allowing snipers to pick off their targets with relative ease. The building was pulverized by rocket fire, grenades and bullets.
Today the land on which the Barakat Building sits is prime real estate worth millions. Its owners had decided to tear it down and sell it to developers. But Hallak’s efforts meant it was saved at the last minute, even as workers had already begun tearing up the marble tiles and removing intricate iron railings.
With the help of a few like-minded friends, she launched a petition and newspaper campaign demanding the building be preserved. Eventually the demolition permit was rescinded and in 2002 the city government took charge of the gutted structure. The Barakat Building is now set to become Beirut’s first museum of municipal history.
Still standing in spite of all its glaring wounds, and almost in defiance of the glass tower blocks popping up all around it, the Barakat Building offers people here some reassurance … the actions of a dedicated few architecture lovers don’t always go unnoticed. (C) of the BBC and Dalila Mahdawi
This cartoon comes at a time when no less than 10 migrant domestic workers have died (mostly by suicide) in Lebanon in recent weeks because of oppressive work conditions or isolation. If you wish to complain to the Gulf Times write to editor@gulf-times.com. You can also contact the cartoonist at mo7md@raya.com
Thanks to Migrant Rights for pointing this out.
By Dalila Mahdawi
BEIRUT, Nov 21 (IPS) – October and November have been bloody months for Lebanon’s migrant domestic workers – over the last five weeks nine women have died. Most deaths have been reported as suicide.
The body of 20-year old Anget R. of Madagascar was found hanging from a rope at her employer’s bedroom door Nov. 11. A newspaper in Madagascar reported the deaths of two other Malagasy women in October. One, identified only as Mampionona, was said to have fallen from the balcony of her employer’s house. The other, identified as Vololona, died after reportedly jumping from the balcony.
Sunit Bholan of Nepal, who was 22, allegedly committed suicide Oct. 8. Ethiopian Kassaye Etsegenet, 23, died after reportedly jumping from the seventh floor of her employer’s house Oct. 15. She left behind a suicide note citing personal reasons.
On Oct. 21, 26-year-old Zeditu Kebede Matente of Ethiopia was found dead, hanging from an olive tree. Two days later 30-year old Saneet Mariam also of Ethiopia died after allegedly falling from the balcony of her employer’s house.
The list goes on: Nepalese national Mina Rokaya, 24, and then Tezeta Yalmoya of Ethiopia, 26 – who also died, it was said, when she fell from the balcony.
“It’s a national tragedy,” Nadim Houry, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, tells IPS.
There are an estimated 200,000 women working in Lebanon as live-in housekeepers, cooks and nannies. Most are from Sri Lanka, Ethiopia and the Philippines, though increasing numbers are arriving from Nepal, Madagascar and Bangladesh.
The workers leave their families behind to travel to Lebanon and look after strangers. Many are treated well by their employers; others are less fortunate.
Once in Lebanon, the women may be confined to their employer’s house, and have their passports confiscated and their salaries withheld, increasing their sense of isolation. Many women say they are not allowed out of the house, or get a day off. Complaints of sexual or psychological abuse are not uncommon.
Lebanon’s controversial sponsorship system means that workers are bound to their employers, and face incarceration if they leave. “It’s distressing to note that suicide for some is the only recourse to release from an abusive situation,” says Azfar Khan, senior migration specialist at the International Labour Organisation (ILO) regional office for the Arab states.
Police investigations are often inadequate, usually taking into consideration only the employer’s testimony and failing to cross-check it with neighbours or the worker’s friends or family, says Houry. If the woman is lucky enough to survive a suicide attempt, the police almost never provide her with a translator, or ask whether she had been abused. Cases where abusive employers are imprisoned “are the exception, not the rule,” says Houry.
The recent spate of deaths is not the first. A HRW study last year found that at least 95 women had died between Jan. 1, 2007 and Aug. 15, 2008 – a rate of more than one a week.
Aimee, a freelance domestic worker from Madagascar, has been in Lebanon for almost 12 years. As a community leader now, she helps workers in distress by offering a sympathetic ear and advice.
Many of the women she counsels do not receive a regular salary, or have been abused by their employers or recruitment agency officials. Agencies “check the women’s bags for phone numbers or addresses of their consulate,” Aimee tells IPS. Any numbers found are destroyed to prevent the woman seeking help. “How can they ask someone to work so far away from home and treat them like that?”
Lebanon’s growing notoriety as a hotbed for abuse of rights has compelled the governments of Ethiopia and the Philippines to issue bans on their nationals working in Lebanon. But this hasn’t stemmed the tide of migrants entering through third countries. Bans in any case only “transfer the problem from one nationality to another,” says Houry, because recruitment agencies simply look to new countries for women workers.
One reason for suicides is the false expectations recruitment agencies raise among migrant workers. Many women are led to believe they will work as nurses or as other professionals. “A lot of these women are recruited in rural areas – it’s like taking someone and plucking them into a totally different environment,” says Houry.
One Nepalese woman he spoke to after she broke her leg trying to escape her employer’s house said “she saw the snow on the mountains and thought if she could cross the mountain, she’d be in Nepal.”
Lebanese labour laws do not cover domestic workers. Without any legal protection, foreign workers are vulnerable to exploitation.
“The ILO has been pushing for domestic workers to be covered under labour law – not just in Lebanon but in other countries of the region – so that at least institutionally they enjoy protection and have the option to have their grievances addressed in court,” says Khan. “They are workers, so why should the labour law not apply to them?”
Lebanon has signed the International Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment, but has yet to move towards signing the Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families – a measure that would obligate it to take protection measures for the migrant community.
But more practical measures the Lebanese could take are to create a national hotline for distressed workers and a labour inspection force to monitor the treatment of migrants, says Houry. “More broadly, society has to mobilise. Not everyone is guilty of ill-treatment, but everyone has to feel responsible. People need to start speaking out and express that this is unacceptable.”
Khalifeh business hit hard as new highway curbs traffic along old costal road
By Dalila Mahdawi
Daily Star staff
Saturday, November 21, 2009
The potters and glass blowers have long gone, with mechanics and kebab vendors taking their place. Lebanon’s once thriving glass trade hasn’t completely died out, however. One family is determinedly keeping the ancient tradition alive, albeit with considerable difficulty.
The Khalifeh family has been blowing glass for about 40 years, selling their goods in a local shop or to wholesalers. In happier times, says shop manager Nisrine Khalifeh, her grandfather taught apprentices the painstaking trade and employed several dozen locals.
The family had a thriving business, helped along by exposure at international craft fairs and friendly tour guides who would bring generous-spending Beirutis to the shop.
Today, Nisrine’s father Hussein runs the business but the locals aren’t interested in working with glass. “No one likes to do it because it’s so hard,” Nisrine says with a sigh. “Many people have asked to learn but then they can’t handle the heat.” She points to her father, who at 55 years old looks more like 85.
His face has been leathered and shoulders hunched by years sweating it out in front of the oven, designing and shaping glass in 140 degree heat. The future of Lebanon’s glass-blowing heritage now rests in the hands of Hussein, Nisrine and seven other family members.
The dearth of trained glass blowers has been accompanied by decreasing sales at the Khalifeh’s shop in Sarafand. Despite the undeniable appeal of the shop’s colorful interior, with its rainbow of ornate standing candle holders, hanging decorations, water jugs and vases, hardly anyone ever visits.
When the southern coastal highway opened a few years ago, business at the Khalifeh shop, which is situated on the old coastal road, was hard hit.
Now, says Nisrine, the only people that come to the shop are foreign clients who might not have visited in a few years or soldiers from UN peacekeeping force UNIFIL looking for presents to take home. “When the autostrade was closed a few months ago and people had to travel on the coastal road, a lot of people came in and bought things,” she says. With only the most motivated clients bothering to make the journey, the Khalifeh family’s glass products are one of Lebanon’s best-kept secrets.
Ever-rising fuel costs are also taking a toll. Because of the exorbitant prices, the Khalifehs only turn on the ovens for big orders to highbrow boutiques in Beirut who then sell the glass products for double or triple the original price.
The oven costs $500 each day to run and takes 24 hours to reach 1,500 degrees, the temperature where glass finally turns to liquid. “Sometimes we stop for two or three months because there’s no work,” Nisrine says. When The Daily Star visited, the ovens had been off for some time.
The ovens themselves are also expensive to keep, as they can only be used twice before the intense heat turns the bricks to sand.
Apart from the high fuel consumption, the Khalifeh’s glass production is environmentally sound, using only recycled glass. Behind the shop, rusty bath tubs and old oil vats groan under the weight of shattered beer and wine bottles, mirrors and windows.
The road ahead looks discouraging for Lebanon’s last remaining glass blowers. Assistance from the government has not been forthcoming, though the Khalifeh’s say they don’t expect help. If mounting costs and falling demand finally force the family to close shop for good, Nisrine doesn’t know what her brothers will do: they left school when they were 12 to learn the trade. “My brothers only know glass-blowing. There’s no work for them except this.”
By Dalila Mahdawi
Daily Star staff
Saturday, November 21, 2009
BEIRUT: The head of a leading Lebanese social justice organization on Friday lamented the absence from the Ministerial Statement any efforts toward reforming the country’s sexist nationality law. Lina Abou-Habib, executive director of the Collective for Research, Training and Development-Action, said Interior Minister Ziyad Baroud relayed to the organization his disappointment that out of 30 ministers, which includes two female ministers, only he and Information Minister Tareq Mitri had urged the Ministerial Statement include a clause acknowledging the need to reform the country’s 1925 nationality law.
The law allows Lebanese men to pass on their nationality to their non-Lebanese wives and children, but forbids Lebanese women from doing the same.
Abou-Habib said the decision was a “serious setback” for gender equality activists.
“It is extremely disappointing. We were expecting something better from this government given all the work that had been done and all the promises made” on allowing Lebanese women to pass on their nationality, Abou-Habib said.
“It shows consistency with the previous government in terms of the total disregard for women rights and citizenship rights,” she added, noting the Justice Ministry’s recent decision to appeal the granting of citizenship to four children born to a Lebanese mother and an Egyptian father. No ministers were immediately available for comment.
CRTD.A has called for a meeting Wednesday Midday at the Engineers Syndicate in Mosaitbeh to step up action.