Migrant workers hit by Lebanon’s financial crisis

BEIRUT: Eighteen-year-old domestic worker Mary came to Lebanon to help support her family, but now a financial crisis is preventing her from sending money home to Ethiopia. A crippling liquidity crunch in the Mediterranean country has drastically limited access to dollars, and tens of thousands of migrant workers toiling for remittances in the hard currency are suffering the backlash. On a recent Sunday, Mary strolled down a bustling street in the capital Beirut with her girlfriends, dressed in an elegant outfit of skirt, jacket and ballerinas for her day off.

“I used to earn 400 dollars ... but today I get my salary in Lebanese pounds,” she said. “I can’t send money to Ethiopia anymore.” Around her, migrant workers of all ages

flocked to shops that sell imported food or clothes from home, the women in their Sunday best. Young men sat on the pavement outside calling centres and restaurants, music spilling out onto the street.

The Lebanese pound used to be easily exchangeable for dollars at a fixed rate, but now banks have capped withdrawals of the US currency and its value has plummeted on the parallel market. The de-facto devaluation means Mary has lost at least a third of her salary. But she insisted her employees were not to blame. The problem, she said, “is from the state”.

‘What will I do?’

In a wave of mass street protests since October 17, Lebanese have railed against what they condemn as a corrupt political class that has mismanaged the country. An estimated quarter of a million domestic workers live in Lebanon, many in conditions that have repeatedly been condemned by their countries of origin and rights group, who point to the fact that many are underage. The large majority of foreign workers hail from Ethiopia, but many

also come from the Philippines, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

A sponsorship system known as “kafala” leaves maids, nannies and carers outside the remit of Lebanon’s labor law, and at the mercy of their employers. Thousands more foreign men work petrol pumps, clean the streets or labor in private businesses and restaurants. Before Lebanon’s economy went into meltdown, most of these workers earned the equivalent of 150 to 400 dollars a month, often according to nationality. But their salaries have now been de facto slashed amid the worst liquidity crisis to rock Lebanon since the end of its 1975-1990 civil war.

With access to dollars severely limited and the value of the local currency tumbling, many employers have decided to pay their employees in Lebanese pounds. Migrant worker are then forced to exchange their local wages into foreign currency at a substantial loss on the black market. “What will I do?” Mary asked. “My siblings are in school and I’m supposed to help my family, but now I can’t.” After years of political turmoil, Lebanon’s economy is collapsing, prices have soared, and businesses are struggling to stay open. —AFP