Lebanese employers locked migrant workers inside houses as they escaped strikes from Israel against Hezbollah, denying them access to shelters, the BBC reported on Thursday.
United Nations officials reported last Friday that nearly all of Lebanon’s 900 government-run shelters are filled due to the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, the report noted.
“We are receiving increasing reports of migrant domestic workers being abandoned by their Lebanese employers, either left on the streets or in their homes as their employers flee,” Mathieu Luciano, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) head of office in Lebanon, told a press briefing in Geneva and was cited by the BBC.
Conditions of migrant workers in Lebanon
The BBC noted that in Lebanon, migrant domestic workers are subject to a sponsorship system that offers no guaranteed rights. This system permits employers to seize their passports and withhold their wages, making it difficult for them to leave.
Even with the knowledge given of a planned attack against Hezbollah, these migrant workers are unable to flee if their employer refuses to allow them the opportunity, the BBC wrote.
