Copyright c 2006 Berkeley Journal of International Law Berkeley Journal of International Law 2006 24 Berkeley J Int l L 1009 LENGTH 21119 words Article The Trafficking of Ethiopian Domestic Workers into Lebanon Navigating Through a Novel Passage of the International Maid Trade NAME By Khaled Ali Beydoun BIO Khaled Ali Beydoun currently serves as the Legal Analyst for Middle East Programs for the American Bar Association Central European and Eurasian Law Initiative ABA CEELI Rule of Law Office of Research and Programmatic Development He is a graduate of the UCLA School of Law where he served as Editor in Chief of the Journal of Islamic Near Eastern Law and concentrated in Critical Race Studies Before UCLA Khaled received his A B from the University of Michigan where he focused on Islamic Near Eastern Studies and Political Science He is from the United States most concentrated Arab community Dearborn Michigan and is of Lebanese ancestry The author would like to extend his deepest thanks to the following individuals for their support assistance and contributing visions AbdulRahman Zahzah Hamada Zahawi Kumar Rao Nadia Salibi Simon Conte Carson Clements Andrea Vesa Wendy Patten and Fikrieh Beydoun SUMMARY I Introduction The Emergence of New Channels of Modern Day Slavery Frequently research in the area of human trafficking makes the trafficker the centerpiece and principal subject of the work and therefore marginalizes the victim s experience This piece surveys the germane bodies of law which address the trafficking of domestic workers for purposes of forced servitude but also seeks to integrate a particular strand of the illegal maid trade into mainstream human rights and rule of law discourse namely the experience of Ethiopian domestic workers trafficked into Lebanon The process of recruitment for most victims of trafficking is similar Trafficked women usually experience a subsequent or secondary trafficking and sometimes subsequent phases as well from the original destination country Lebanon in this case In October 2005 Lebanon took a major first step by ratifying the Trafficking Protocol but must next develop supplementary domestic legislation and programs to combat the influx of illegally trafficked Ethiopian women and laborers at large Although it cannot be said that all cases of trafficked women working in Lebanon rise to slavery like proportions numerous accounts expose cases that merit if not supersede that label The workday for a trafficked Ethiopian domestic worker in Lebanon at best is nineteen hours HIGHLIGHT Almost daily a steady stream of young girls queue at the check in of Addis Ababa international airport destined for the Middle East Smartly dressed wearing makeup as they laugh and joke with each other all long for a new life abroad with promises of high wages and a good job Yet for most that dream becomes a nightmare as they are forced into prostitution or a slave like existence as housemaids working 20 hours a day without pay n1 TEXT 1009 I Introduction The Emergence of New Channels of Modern Day Slavery In today s sociopolitical lexicon the word slavery connotes archaic generalizations of African slaves being sold and shipped to the New World and Europe Oftentimes the historical representation and icons of classical or 1010 chattel slavery monopolize one s understanding of this ever more robust and fluid industry which effectively extinguishes our belief that it still exists n2 This limited conception of slavery excludes the many contemporary institutions and practices that are fundamentally akin to the classical form n3 Shackles and whips have been replaced by more inventive designs to dehumanize suppress and subsequently enslave persons for economic or sexual purposes Nevertheless slaves are more readily available and sometimes still chatteled like before but today s slaves and abolitionists must also cope with new paradigms Slaves are now less expensive than at any point in recorded history This cheapness is a boon to criminals and has also altered the way that slaves are treated and used These changes mean that while slavery remains a criminal activity both the law and researchers are forced to confront new manifestations of slavery n4 Today human trafficking has emerged as the imperceptible vehicle for enslavement From the perspective of the trafficker like that of the slave trader trafficked persons remain merely a commodity open for sale and apt for servitude or other forms of exploitation This piece presents an inconspicuous but burgeoning channel of the international maid trade n5 The trafficking of Ethiopian domestic workers into Lebanon has proliferated since 1989 and neither government nor influential transnational human rights actors have instituted any meaningful measures to prevent it Furthermore research and scholarship has also failed this class of victims with little attention being paid to their plight in the pages of law journals human rights reports and the like institutional mechanisms which traditionally launch more formal policy interventions into such crises Perhaps this piece is nothing more than an academic plea urging a heightened level of alarm and action on the part of the international human rights community 1011 The international community regards the trafficking of persons namely children and women as a human rights violation that is considered a contemporary form of slavery n6 Thus to keep abreast of contemporary mutations of slavery the international community codified human trafficking side by side with slavery the former a legal term of art that effectively encompasses non traditional forms of enslavement Here my focus is on trafficking alone as opposed to smuggling n7 wherein the subjects are fully aware and not coerced or defrauded into migrating The Protocol to Prevent Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially Women and Children hereinafter Trafficking Protocol n8 offers the most comprehensive and universally relied upon definition of trafficking Trafficking in persons shall mean the recruitment transportation transfer harbouring or receipt of persons by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion of abduction of fraud of deception of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person for the purpose of exploitation Exploitation shall include at a minimum the
View Full Document
Unlocking...