Lebanon loves a holiday – and Lebanese of all confessional stripes spend a bundle over Christmas and Easter; Valentine’s Day regularly whips us into a million-dollar annual lather of love, while, according to the local press, Beirut partied so hard on St Patrick’s Day, the capital “turned green”. But no sooner had we put aside our party hats, we were asked to dig even deeper for Mother’s Day.
Text messages reminded us that we would be wicked of heart if we didn’t buy mum that new pair of shoes, or a blender, a spa treatment, a washing machine, a vacuum cleaner or even a car. But one marketing genius came up with a truly brilliant idea, again sent by SMS. “For mother’s day indulge Ur [sic] mom &offer [sic] her a housekeeper. Special offers on Kenyan&Ethiopian [sic] nationalities for a period of 10 days.”
Many right-minded Lebanese were suitably angered; Facebook and Twitter lit up and even the labour ministry got involved.
But the fact remains that 90 per cent of these outraged professional middle class employ at least one of Lebanon’s 200,000 migrant workers, mostly from Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Nepal, Kenya and Ethiopia.
It’s not a great system. And for the record, Mrs Karam and I have employed six housekeepers since 1998. They are not protected by any meaningful labour law, but we, presumably like many other employers, believed we did more than enough to ensure they were happy. Were they? You’d have to ask them.
Anyway, I digress. The labour minister Sejaan Azzi declared this latest unsavoury incident “an insult to human rights” and promised that if the culprits were found the agency would be shut down.
But can we really blame anyone for offering a discount on staff when virtually the whole country has embraced a culture that is tantamount to slavery?
Furthermore, a very shameful culture of segregation has evolved and at no time is it better demonstrated than during the summer months. When Lebanon’s beach clubs operate a door policy that would not have been out of place in apartheid South Africa.
The practice began in the mid ‘90s, when foreign workers were strictly forbidden to enjoy the same freedoms as the Lebanese, and no one really cared. Sure, it made most right-thinking Lebanese uncomfortable, but there was a tacit acceptance that there was very little that could be done. The country had come out of war. A few years earlier we had been killing each other. What could we expect? The owners were even more practical. They knew they had to cater to the prejudices of their clientele.
But now the maid has become a fixture within the Lebanese family, beach clubs have been forced to revise their policy. But not in the way you might think. Now most beach clubs will let them in for free to help with little Omar and Yasmin but – and this is where it gets nasty – as long as they don’t swim.
Like most pressing social issues in Lebanon – the smoking ban and various failed driving laws spring to mind – everyone knows what the problems are, but no one with any real influence has done anything to ensure they achieve any “grip”, and this includes how we treat migrant workers. The maid trade is big business after all, with plenty of opportunity for kickbacks and bribes.
But the tragic stories of those who clearly don’t have a voice continue to surface in spite of the first registered domestic workers’ union being created in January.
Last week, while the Lebanese social networks were buzzing with bleeding heart indignation, yet another maid committed suicide – it happens far too often – this time in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli.
Melika Begum was found hanged in her bedroom at her employer’s home. She had initially asked to return home to Sri Lanka after confessing she missed her children, but presumably her employers refused.
I hope we all had a happy Mother’s Day.
Michael Karam is a freelance writer who lives between Beirut and Brighton.
