I support family in Ethiopia, have to pay my Lebanese sponsor who keeps my passport – and my cleaning work has stopped with lockdown. #HumansofCOVID19

Selam Abebe*

I am a domestic worker. I clean people’s houses. I am from Ethiopia but I came here to Lebanon nine years ago. I could only finish grade nine at home and then I had to start working. But I was earning a very low salary in a beauty salon back home in Ethiopia, so I came to Beirut.

 am 38 years old, and a single mum of a son who is 21 years old. I support my son, my mother and my sister back home. My son got a scholarship to study in China this year but I have to pay his expenses every month.

I work for a cleaning company and I have six-hour daily shifts but the money is not enough so I also have part-time work cleaning houses near where I live.

This pandemic has made things very hard. Most places are closed. Only the supermarkets and pharmacies are open. My company was completely closed for two weeks. My part-time work has also stopped. My employers fear that I might infect them because I share an apartment with other people.

I had to take a loan from my friend to pay the rent last month. This month, I also cannot pay but I talked to my landlady and she says she can wait a little bit. Two weeks ago, my company was able to start to work a little. I have been able to do three shifts a week. I am very grateful but the money is not enough.

I am in the country under the ‘kafala’ system. I have to pay an agency and I have to have a sponsor to work here. For the first three years, I worked for my sponsor. It was very bad. I was like a slave. The wages were very low and I worked every day, all the time, sometimes for 18 hours a day.

For the past six years, I have been a freelancer and it is much better. I don’t work for the sponsor. I work for a cleaning company. But I still have to pay an agency $650 and a sponsor another $650 every year to renew my paperwork so that I can remain working in Lebanon.

My sponsor keeps my passport, even though I don’t work for him. Last year, I wanted to go home for Christmas and I had to pay him $100 to get my passport. He will not take Lebanese pounds, only US dollars. The agency also wants dollars. But this is a big problem now because the Lebanese pound has become very weak. I must pay double what I used to pay.

The Ethiopian Consulate does not do anything. They know what is happening but they don’t care.

The Migrant Community Center, where I have been learning English and how to use a computer, is also closed so I have nothing enjoyable and interesting to do when I am not working.

* Not her real name.

Source: Open Democracy