* Dollar shortage leaves domestic workers stranded
* Coronavirus pandemic hinders repatriation efforts
* Embassy and NGO shelters full
* Migrant workers long marginalised in Lebanon
By Ellen Francis and Imad Creidi
BEIRUT, May 21 (Reuters) - Temitope can't find work in
Lebanon since the Nigerian domestic worker escaped her
employer's house last month.
With Lebanon in deep financial crisis and dollars in short
supply, people have less money to spend on help. And with Beirut
airport shut under a coronavirus lockdown, Temitope can't go
back home even if she tries.
"I'm very afraid. There's not a day that I don't cry...
without any money even to eat now," said Temitope, who climbed
down a building after her employer beat her until she bled. She
now lives with friends, relying on any cash they can give her.
Like many African and Asian women in Lebanon, Temitope, a
mother of two, was recruited for work and came so she could send
money home to her family.
But dollar shortages piling pressure on hundreds of
thousands of migrant workers in Lebanon have left some stranded
in the streets and many begging to go home. Rights groups warn
this puts workers at risk of abuse and trauma.
Embassy and NGO shelters are saturated.
Since Lebanon plunged into crisis late last year, the local
currency has lost more than half its value. Prices have soared
as more Lebanese slide into poverty.
The coronavirus pandemic has also hampered government
efforts to repatriate workers via their embassies, and even
those flights require payment in dollars.
"There's more need than ever before for shelters...for those
who lost jobs and have no place else to go," said Zeina Mezher
of the International Labour Organization.
Activist groups say they field regular calls from unpaid
domestic workers who have been kicked out or escaped their
employer's households.
"SLAVERY"
Migrant workers form the backbone of sectors like waste
collection and housekeeping in Lebanon, where many barely have
any rights, face widespread racism and sometimes commit suicide.
Most women work as maids under a sponsorship system called
"kafala" that even the former labour minister likened to
slavery. It prevents them from leaving without the employer's
consent, with salaries as low as $150 a month.
Last month, police interrogated a man who tried to sell a
Nigerian housekeeper for $1,000 on Facebook.
"The crises, whether it's coronavirus or the economy, expose
the flaws in the kafala system," Mezher said.
The prime minister's wife sparked controversy last week when
she called on Lebanese - facing rising unemployment - to take up
jobs usually filled by foreigners like housekeeper or doorman.
Bangladeshi trash collectors went on strike for weeks after
the firm managing waste in Beirut, RAMCO, switched to paying
them in Lebanese pounds, undermining the value of their wages.
When workers stopped garbage trucks from going out in
protest last week, riot police arrived, firing smoke bombs and
beating some of them.
Mohamad Ilahi, one of the workers, has not sent money to his
wife and two daughters in Bangladesh for months. "My family
cries a lot," he said. "They can't pay school fees, can't buy
enough food."
He said the firm had finally agreed to a pay raise in local
currency.
RAMCO manager Walid BouSaad said the company had no choice
because the Lebanese state, its main customer, stopped paying in
dollars late last year, on top of millions the government owes
in arrears. "It is the worker's right to ask for payment in
dollars," he said. "But some things are out of our hands."
For Ilahi, the future in Lebanon remains uncertain. "I want
to work. But without a solution, there's no use for me here," he
said. "I will want to leave then. All of us will."
(Writing by Ellen Francis
Editing by Mark Heinrich)