Abuse of domestic servants, particularly maids, in Lebanon is an ongoing problem that Human Rights Watch is paying close attention to. There’s a new video out as part of an awareness campaign, aiming to help those being abused.

This video is part of an awareness campaign. It hopes to help foreigners in Lebanon who are abused by their employers. Many of the women seek refuge at the Caritas migrant centre.

They come to Lebanon from Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh and Ethiopia to seek employment as domestic workers, but some of them are lucky to escape with their lives.

Human Rights Watch says that one maid dies every week in Lebanon from unexplained reasons. The women hide their identity for fear of retribution from former employers.

[Unidentified Bangladeshi, Abused Worker]:
"I worked in three houses, I worked in three houses and sometimes I ate and sometimes I didn't eat. They all ate but I couldn't. I didn't eat, I went to sleep without eating."

One of the main reasons for the ongoing abuse is the lack of a definitive law that guards the women's rights and states their duties, says Human Rights Watch's Nadim Houri.

[Nadim Houri, Human Rights Watch Spokesperson]:
"In 2009, we registered eight deaths in Lebanon in October 2009, and in January 2010, there were at least three cases of deaths. There has to be a change, on two levels. The first would be to amend the labour law to include these maids."

A lot of the women have had little or no contact with their families overseas. And many can't leave Lebanon because their passports have been confiscated.

There are almost 200,000 domestic migrant workers in Lebanon. The majority of them women from Africa and Asia.