J’ai Peur – Viany
Partout où le mensonge devient la seule façon de convaincre, il y a trafic .
Partout où il y a esclavage il y a trafic.
Ou il y a exploitation il y a trafic.
Ou il y a escroquerie il y a trafic.
J’étais en première année BTS (Brevet de Technicien Supérieur) à l’université de Douala au Cameroun et ma famille m’a parlé du Liban. Elle aussi avait entendu parler du Liban de la voisine et la voisine avait entendu parler du Liban d’une femme qui avait été au Liban et qui est revenu au Cameroun.
(J’aime bien le fait que ça soit moi qui écrive ma propre histoire. Je suis fatigué des mensonges et des gens qui se disent bienveillants et capables de décider pour nous).
Après plusieurs tentatives de me convaincre j’ai accepté de voyager pour le Liban. Sans vraiment savoir ce qui m’attendait.
Le gros argument qui m’abreuvait quand j’avais soif, me soutenait quand couchée au coin de la cuisine le bruit de la machine à laver du frigo et du four fusionnaient et m’empêchait de dormir. Je pensais à cette promesse. Cette promesse que m’avais faite cette femme, le premier maillon de la chaine, celle qui une foie de retour au Cameroun s’est convertie en trafiquante: “tu vas travailler pour 6 mois et avec ton salaire tu pourras dire à ta madame de faire tes papiers pour que tu ailles en France continuer tes études de couture”. Tout mon voyage prenait appui sur cette promesse la. J’avais pris avec moi tous mes diplômes et mes documents qui pouvaient être utiles pour une inscription. J’avais apporté avec moi mes plus belles créations de couture. J’avais apporté aussi mon matériel pour éviter de dépenser trop en fournitures quand je devais reprendre les cours.
Pendant mes 6 premiers mois de contrat j’étais comme dans un coma profond. J’étais concentrée sur le jour où je devais arriver à 6 mois. Je ne voyais rien et ne comprenais rien, je vivais dans le futur. Les maltraitances étaient sans effet. J’avais le corps et le cerveau sous anesthésie.
Mes camarades à l’université au Cameroun et même les professeurs me demandais comment j’allais, mais j’étais concentré sur un objectif plus grand. Tout allait changer après 6 mois.
Et oui… tout à changé après ces 6 mois.
Je me souviens encore de comment ils étaient assis au salon tous les deux un vendredi à 17h00: “Mme, s’il vous plaît, j’ai déjà passé 6 mois chez vous est ce que vous pouvez utiliser mon salaire pour faire mes papiers et me faire voyager pour la France pour que j’aille continuer mes études?” Les regards se mélangent, un silence s’installe pour au moins une minute.
De mon côté, c’était une évidence qu’elle devait dire oui. Je n’avais qu’à prier pour que la procédure soit rapide.
C’est là que ma Madame me demande “Qui t’as dit ça?”. “C’est la fille qui m’a fait venir au Liba[…]. A peine j’ai fini qu’elle m’interrompt. “Tu es venu ici travailler et tu n’as rien a faire a part travailler. Tu ne peux pas sortir sans mon accord. Tu es à moi et si je pouvais c’est moi qui devait aller en France mais pas toi. Ça fait longtemps que j’essaye. Et ça coûte trop cher.”
J’avais 21 ans.
Ce jour là je suis sorti du coma
L’anesthésie était finie.
Place à la réalité du système Kafala.
En toute sincérité même à un Libanais je ne le souhaite pas.
Le système Kafala c’est de l’esclavage et c’est de la traite d’être humain.
C’est lourd à lire et à dire mais c’est vrai ça existe. Beaucoup s’enrichissent et ont une vie de rêve grâce à la souffrance des femmes comme moi. Mais je ne le souhaite à personne, même pas à une Libanaise.
Si chaque victime mettait par écrit son expérience, tu pourras comprendre comment chaque vol qui se pose au sol dans un pays qui applique le système Kafala fait couler des larmes rouges à chaque fois.
Nous sommes mortes tout en étant vivantes.
Tu le sais, et moi aussi tu ne fais rien et moi j’ai peur.
Viany De Marceau
ENGLISH TRANSLATION
I am afraid by Viany
When lies are the only way to convince, there is trafficking.
Where there is slavery, there is trafficking
Where there is exploitation, there is trafficking
Where there is fraud, there is trafficking.
I was in my first year of my college degree at the University of Douala in Cameroon when my family spoke to me about Lebanon. They had also heard of Lebanon from the neighbour, and the neighbour had heard of it from a woman who had been there and came back to Cameroon.
(I like the fact that it is me who gets to write my own story. I am tired of the lies, and of people who pretend to care yet decide for us).
After several attempts to convince me, I accepted to travel to Lebanon. Without really knowing what awaited me.
The biggest argument which quenched my thirst, which gave me strength when I was lying down in the corner of the kitchen with the sound of the washing machine, fridge, and oven – all together preventing me from falling asleep. I would think of the promise. The promise that this woman made to me, the first link in the chain, who after returning to Cameroon became a trafficker herself: “You will work for 6 months and with your salary you will be able to tell the Madame to do your papers and go to France to finish your studies in fashion design”.
My entire trip was based on this promise. I had taken with me all my diplomas and relevant documents that could help with my registration. I had also brought with me all my most beautiful fashion designs and all the sewing material I would need to save some money when I start my course.
During those first 6 months of my contract I was in a deep coma. I was focused on the day the 6 months would arrive. I didn’t see anything nor understood anything. I was living in the future. The abuse I faced didn’t affect me. My body and mind were under anaesthesia.
My university friends in Cameroon and even the professors were asking about me but I was just focused on a bigger goal. Everything would change after 6 months.
And yes… Everything did change after those 6 months.
I still remember how they were seated in the living room, on a Friday at 5pm. “Madame, please, I already spent 6 months with you. Can you please use my salary to do my papers and pay for my trip to France so I can continue my studies?”
Looks were exchanged, and a silence took place for at least one minute.
For me, it was obvious she would say yes. I just had to keep praying for the process to be quick.
This was when my Madame asked me “Who told you this?” “The girl who told me to come to Leba[…]I barely started my sentence, when she interrupted: “You came here to work, and you have nothing else to do but work. You cannot leave without my permission. You are mine. If I could, I would be the one to go to France, not you. I have been trying for a long time and it costs a lot of money”.
I was 21 years old.
That day, I woke up from the coma.
The anaesthesia wore off.
The reality of the Kafala system took over.
In all honesty, I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, not even a Lebanese.
The Kafala system is a form of slavery and human trafficking.
It’s hard to read and to write, but it’s true, and it exists. Many profit from it and have a dream life thanks to the suffering of women like me.
But I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, not even a Lebanese woman.
If every victim could write about her experience, you could understand how each flight that lands in a country that uses the Kafala system causes many tears of blood, every single time.
We are dead, whilst still alive.
You know it, and me too,
You don’t do anything about it,
And me, I am afraid.
Viany De Marceau
They say, the most important conversation is often the most difficult one to have.
I’ll argue the most important stories are often the most difficult ones to write.
The journey of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) and racialized people born in Lebanon resembles the one of Theseus and the minotaur Greek mythology tale.
It is the epitome of navigating a wild labyrinth while attempting self-protection and preservation from systematic and systemic racism.
The idea that we are not affected by racism equally holds partial truth!
In our case, as children of MDWs (Migrant Domestic Workers) born in Lebanon, we certainly share in common a dualistic experience of anger against our parents’ malevolent years of oppression within the Kafala system, and in contrast the benevolent reaction of few liberal citizens who admire our hybrid identity.
Our mastery of Arabic and other spoken languages intrigues…
Locals ponder about our deemed mysterious identity: we are labeled as African, Asian, American or coming from a remote island, but rarely the optionality of being born in Lebanon occurs.
Our livelihood is embedded on a constant steady walk in between edges: a blossoming interpersonal activism while fighting racism, inequity and stereotypes.
The fight to exist and coexist drains our spirit! We dream to enjoy the freedom of being human, holding equal rights, striving, not worrying about residential permits or our parent’s legal statuses, precarity, fighting sexual harassers, being followed around in the streets, bullies at school, university, the lack of job opportunities, being in the sideline while we are aware of our richness, capabilities, and high potential.
The fighting loop may at times drain our spirit, however we resist, and continue to resist! Children of migrant domestic workers resist compliance, systemic racism, generalization, biases experienced from locals.
We opt for intentional dissociation from a generalized one-size-fits all mentality through finding solace within our safe community and the what we call “good ones”; they are our childhood Lebanese friends, and many uplifting souls we’ve encountered through the years. However, the retreat is short-lived, because we are born front fighters – being in between many worlds: the migrant domestic workers community and “our not our country” reality!
As we mature, we relinquish power and settle for belonging to humanity as a whole. The soul search culminates once we unlock self-appropriation, acceptance and embrace being us – BIPOC born in Lebanon!
It is not a secret that migrant domestic workers in Lebanon suffer from discriminatory labels – a trendy curse within a country practicing and endorsing modern-day slavery.
I remember my first encounter with racism; I was 5 years old, and seriously questioned why my bullies would scream: “Sri Lankiye”, it was irrelevant, I’m not from Sri Lanka.
The bullies made sure to emote their intentions: the nationality; “Sri Lankiye” was stripped from it meaning, it was transformed into a racial slur.
To add context, in the nineties a high number of migrant domestic workers in Lebanon were Sri Lankan, currently the majority of MDWs migrate from Ethiopia and the Philippines.
BIPOC witness how racial slurs mirror the racial origin of each migration waves! A common verbal racial slur we experience is being called “Habashiye” referring to Habesha, the people of Ethiopian and Eritrean heritage. “Habashiye” replaced “Sri Lankiye” as a mean of inducing disdain through altering the true etymology of a beautiful word.
The question is how to find a place when there’s no space for children of migrant domestic workers in Lebanon?
The hard truth is you carve your own space within a feeble system. We tap into our unrecognized potential. We are given agencies and capabilities to change policies, fight against systemic racism, societal practices and attitudes embedded in discrimination.
Education and constant self-actualization are one crucial weapon. This will depend certainly on a multitude of external factors like the oppressive system shift, access to education, one’s upbringing, level of administrative challenges, undocumented or documented parents, life experiences, environments, outside influences, beliefs, and numerous other metrics.
On International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, we children of migrant domestic workers dream of visibility, respect, and holding mutual rights as any other individual. We have names and multiple identities that produce, if allowed positive diversity.
We love Fairouz and Tems, we want to live in peace and not be shattered in pieces by the Kafala system!
B.K. – Child of a Migrant Domestic Worker in Lebanon
A Call for Intersectionality & Inclusion
The Kafala system is an oppressive, racist, patriarchal structure that exploits and abuses migrant workers that disproportionately affects women of colour. The system relies heavily on human trafficking and other organised crimes, exposing migrant domestic workers to severe human rights violations. Women of colour from South-East Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa have been lured and trapped by the system for several decades now without any real attempts towards sustainable change . Migrant Workers’ Action believes that unless a new movement of solidarity and support emerges to amplify and include Migrant Domestic Workers in all human rights conversations happening in Lebanon, the status quo of abuse and exploitation under the Kafala system will continue unchallenged.
Throughout the years, Lebanon has developed an active and engaging civil society space advocating for women’s rights among many other issues. However, within the shadows of this flourishing civil society work, exists the persistent and problematic normalisation of racism and exploitation of migrant domestic workers through the Kafala system, which remains condoned and unaddressed. The Lebanese feminist movement has many challenges and barriers to tackle. It is in this effort towards equity and liberation that the movement should adopt an intersectional and inclusive approach including refugees, members of the LGBTQIA community as well as migrant domestic workers.
The adversities women in Lebanon experience are harsh, unforgiving and cruel. For migrant domestic workers this reality is even more harsh. Their predicament is one of forced labour, racial, sexual and physical abuse in a legal system sanctioned by the government and normalised by the local population perpetuating a culture of impunity. Failing to take into consideration the intersections of migrant domestic workers may lead to the Lebanese Women’s Rights movement to be exclusionary thus capitulating to elements of the patriarchy. Migrant Domestic Workers are women of colour, who are marginalised by multiple systems of oppression, both in their country of origin as well as Lebanon. Addressing their needs and challenges requires the Lebanese civil society as well as international actors to adopt an intersectional approach to women’s rights, as it allows the movements to take into account the Migrant Domestic Workers’ multiple intersecting experiences and identities.
It is important to note that focusing on an intersectional feminist approach does not negate the existence of Lebanese women’s struggles but instead offers a more comprehensive and inclusive approach to the struggle for women’s rights within the country that include the migrant and refugee population.
Migrant Workers’ Actions invites the women’s rights movement to reach out to the extensive networks of migrant domestic workers communities in Lebanon and to build bridges working together towards achieving equity and freedom.
On International Migrants Day we want to celebrate and appreciate each and every Migrant Domestic Worker, who is working under the hardships and abuse of the Kafala system. We want to celebrate the activists, community leaders and organisers that provide support, awareness and insight into the lived experience of being Migrant Workers in Lebanon.