Slideshow - International Migrants Day
A day in the life of a migrant worker
To mark International Migrants Day on December 18, the ILO Regional Office for Arab States’ Migration and Governance Network (MAGNET) has teamed up with photographers Leila Alaoui and Nadia Bseiso to follow non-Arab migrant workers in the Middle East who spend their limited time off making a difference in their communities. The images, from Lebanon and Jordan, shed light on how these migrant workers cook, compete, worship, organize and learn from each other to better their lives and lobby for their rights.
Photo-story: Migrant workers in Jordan and Lebanon
Many migrant workers around the world suffer from a dearth of fundamental rights at work, including the right to a weekly day off. In the Middle East, some migrants rarely leave their place of work or have the opportunity to meet with fellow workers from their countries. In this photo-reportage, the ILO gives voice to inspiring women and men who choose to use their limited time off to assist fellow migrants in realizing their right to decent work wherever they may be.* The full names of the workers in this photo-story have been withheld at their request.
Rose from Cameroon holds her goddaughter in a suburb of Beirut, Lebanon. She has been a domestic worker for 15 years. While a formal organization for migrant domestic workers does not yet exist in Lebanon, Rose is one of the founding members of Lebanon’s Domestic Worker Committee, the Arab region’s first body that represents domestic workers established with the support of the ILO and the National Federation of Employees and Workers in Lebanon.
© Leila Alaoui / ILO
Out of an overall workforce of around 1.45 million in Lebanon, an estimated 150,000 to 220,000 are women migrant domestic workers, according to estimates by various institutional sources from 2012. Because of the nature of their employment contracts, many are confined to the homes in which they work, and rarely integrate with their host community. Rose – one of the lucky migrant domestic workers to be granted a day off – was trained to prepare homemade Cameroonian food for sale at a Beirut farmer’s market in November 2014, as part of an ILO project to promote integration and cultural diversity.
© Leila Alaoui / ILO
Rose poses at a farmers’ market in Beirut, Lebanon where she sells her traditional homemade food from Cameroon. ‘I learned how to cook from my mother,’ says Rose, ‘I love sharing my food with the Lebanese.’ Part of the money generated from the sale of food at the famers’ market goes towards funding the work of the Migrant Domestic Worker Committee.
© Leila Alaoui / ILO
Rahel, an Ethiopian domestic worker, is also a member of the Domestic Workers Committee. Rahel began to support her fellow Ethiopian domestic workers in any way she could many years before the Committee’s establishment. ‘I remember when a woman showed up at my door very sick, and it turned out she had tuberculosis,’ she recalls. ‘My employer is very supportive and helped me find a hospital for her.’
© Leila Alaoui / ILO
Even if she cannot immediately solve the problems of her fellow domestic workers, Rahel (L) listens and offers newly arrived Ethiopian women an outlet to voice their grievances. Rahel spends her Sundays mostly with women who are trying to deal with what is often a traumatic experience of being a migrant domestic worker in a foreign country.
© Leila Alaoui / ILO
A budding filmmaker, Rahel uses the stories she hears from migrant domestic workers in Lebanon in films about their plight. Many migrant workers world-wide can find themselves victims of exploitation and physical, sexual, and psychological abuse at the hands of their employers as well as private employment agencies that recruit them.
© Leila Alaoui / ILO
A Buddhist Sri Lankan migrant domestic worker worships at the St. Joseph Church in Beirut, Lebanon. Because Sri Lankan Bhuddists in Lebanon do not have their own temple, for the past 14 years the church has leant them a space to practice their faith. Domestic work is excluded from the Lebanese Labour Code, and migrant workers are not entitled to the same protection as other workers in Lebanon. Even though Lebanese law entitles domestic workers to a weekly day off, many migrant workers are unaware of their rights and often must negotiate holiday time and daily working hours with employers on an individual basis.
© Leila Alaoui / ILO
‘These women have a lot of sadness,’ says one of the Buddhist migrant domestic workers at an improvised Buddhist temple in Beirut, Lebanon. ‘We try to help each other deal with our sadness. We have very difficult lives, we miss our families.’ The majority of migrant domestic workers are only allowed to travel home to visit their families every two or three years. Often employers also dictate when they can make phone calls home, especially when workers are not permitted to leave the homes they work in.
© Leila Alaoui / ILO
Buddhist Sri Lankan migrant domestic workers enjoy cuisine from their home country in Lebanon after worshiping on their day off from work. As many migrant domestic workers often do not have the opportunity to mingle with the societies they live amongst, fewer opportunities for cultural exchange and integration exist. On the last Sunday of every month, any person passing by the St. Joseph Church in Beirut is offered a meal of traditional Sri Lankan food as a token of inter-cultural exchange.
© Leila Alaoui / ILO
Fernando (L) is a Sri Lankan office worker who has been in Lebanon for 15 years and organizes a weekly cricket match for migrant workers in his free time. ‘It’s not easy organising the cricket club and gathering all the teams every week,’ he says. ‘But we love the game; this is part of our lives as migrant workers, and this is how we enjoy our day off.’ Fernando supports a wife and two children in Sri Lanka and can only travel to see them once every two years under the terms of his employment contract.
© Leila Alaoui / ILO
Organized by migrant workers in Lebanon, a cricket tournament in the summer of 2014 saw 20 teams from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Pakistan, countries that provide much of Lebanon’s non-Arab migrant workforce. Lebanon, like most other Arab countries, organises migrant workers labour under the kafala ‒ or sponsorship ‒ system. The system ties the right of migrant workers to reside and work in the country to a single employer, which can expose workers to forced labour. The ILO has called on member states to reform the kafala system.
© Leila Alaoui / ILO
The migrant workers’ cricket club in Lebanon not only brings the migrant labour community together for fun and play, but also functions as an informal cooperative. Team members contribute to a common fund, which acts as a form of social protection. Team members can withdraw money from the fund in an economic emergency.
© Leila Alaoui / ILO
Members of the Filipino community in Amman, Jordan perform a traditional dance in the autumn of 2014 to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the United Filipino Organization, an informal collective of Filipino nationals in Jordan. Although Jordan has ratified Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948 (No. 87), migrant worker voices are rarely represented in trade unions. Dedicated formal cooperatives and organisations for migrant workers do not yet exist in Jordan.
© Nadia Bseiso / ILO
Evangeline, President of the United Filipino Organization, says her mother, one of the first women in the Philippines to represent a community at the municipal level, inspired her to start the organization. Before settling in Jordan, Evangeline travelled to many countries with the family for whom she worked for some 20 years. Feeling that there was a gap in the representation of the Filipino community in Amman, Evangeline drew from her mother’s example of how to mobilze community members to found the organization in Jordan.
© Nadia Bseiso / ILO
Members of the Filipino community celebrate the closing ceremony of the sports season in Amman, Jordan. The United Filipino Organization (UFO) in Jordan focuses on creating sports teams as a key element to building stronger community ties. With over 500 team players, each team has a leader that reports to higher-ranking officers in the UFO.
© Nadia Bseiso / ILO
Arshad plays with his grandsons in his home in Al Zarqa, Jordan. He migrated to Jordan from his native Pakistan over 25 years ago to work in a garment factory at one of the country’s Qualifying Industrial Zones (QIZ). He has since married a Jordanian and left the factory to join the General Trade Union for Garment Workers as a full time employee. Since 2010, migrant workers have been allowed to join existing trade unions in Jordan.
© Nadia Bseiso / ILO
As the daughter of a Pakistani migrant worker and a Jordanian woman, Rania says she fears her high school graduation day because she expects to be discriminated against in the job market. She is Arshad’s youngest daughter and one of three children. Rania says that after her visit to Pakistan in mid-2014, she wishes she could live there for good.
© Nadia Bseiso / ILO
Even during the customary family lunch on Friday, a day off in Jordan, Arshad’s phone keeps ringing. As a representative of the General Trade Union for Garment Workers he says migrant workers constantly call him with complaints, which he then takes up with their employers. Arshad’s position as a mediary between management and workers means he lobbies for workers’ rights to basic pay, working hours, sick days and days off.
© Nadia Bseiso / ILO
Jordan’s garment manufacturing factories are situtated within 14 Qualifying Industrial Zones, each containing a number of factories as well as dormitory housing (backdrop) for the workers. Originally conceived by the Joint ILO-International Finance Corporation project Better Work Jordan, the Al Hassan Industrial Zone Workers’ Centre is situated in the dusty outskirts of the city of Ramtha, about 70 kilometres north of Jordan’s capital Amman. The Centre offers services to some 30,000 migrant workers who live and work in the zone. Roughly 80 per cent of workers in the zone are migrants from the Asian subcontinent, mainly from India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
© Nadia Bseiso / ILO
A Sri Lankan couple use internet services to speak to family and friends abroad from the canteen of the Al Hassan Industrial Zone Workers’ Centre in Ramtha, Jordan. The Centre provides a space for the workers to relax and offers an array of services and activities. The first of its kind in the country, the Worker’s Centre has quickly become an integral part of many migrant workers’ lives since it opened in October 2013.
© Nadia Bseiso / ILO
Migrant workers workout in the Al Hassan Industrial Zone Workers’ Centre gym in Jordan. Even though 60 percent of workers in the garment industry are women, men also migrate to work in the sector. ‘I hardly move at all during the day, and when I do it’s just to visit the canteen or bathroom,’ says Indika, a 29-year-old Sri Lankan who says he exercises daily at the Centre’s gym. ‘But since the centre opened, this has all changed.’
© Nadia Bseiso / ILO
Dance classes are one of the most popular activities at the Al Hassan Industrial Zone Workers’ Centre. Open five evenings a week and all day on Friday, a public holiday in Jordan, the Centre has proved to be a popular destination for migrant workers from a number of nationalities who play cricket, practice yoga, use the Internet, admire the art displays and meet to celebrate national and religious events. The Centre also offers legal advice and trade union support.
© Nadia Bseiso / ILO
Sandra throws a punch during a self-defence class at the Al Hassan Industrial Zone Worker's Center. Sandra, from Myanmar, moved to Jordan when she saw a poster advertising work opportunities for Burmese workers in the garment sector. She has now left work at a garment factory to take up a full time position at the Centre. After seeing an increase in cases of harassment, sexual abuse and even rape among her fellow Burmese nationals, she started to organize self-defence and awareness classes at the Centre.
© Nadia Bseiso / ILO
Sandra (C), a former garment worker turned full-time workers’ centre employee, teaches a computer class at the Al Hassan Industrial Zone Worker's Centre in Jordan. Because many migrant workers who attend her class come from different counties, former students help translate her lectures into a myriad of languages to accommodate for all nationalities, which include migrant workers from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, India, Madagascar, Burma, and many other nations.
© Nadia Bseiso / ILO
Sandra has adopted Nana, a stray dog who was found wandering outside the Al Hassan Industrial Zone Worker’s Center in Jordan. Since then Sanda and Nana have become inseperable; Nana follows Sandra around everywhere she goes.
© ILO / Nadia Bseiso