Lebanon witnessed two cases of suicide last week alone. The blog Ethiopian Suicides catalogs many Ethiopian deaths in Lebanon as the country possesses a large Ethiopian population, as well as a dismal record of migrant rights. Both cases involved a Lebanese domestic worker hanging herself in an employer’s home – almost certainly the source of their misery.

Another Ethiopian woman hung herself in her sponsor’s home in Saudi Arabia, where paltry workers rights and neglected conditions also have a history of pushing maids to commit suicide. Police are investigating the incident according to routine procedure, though the causes of suicide are generally standard themselves – as are the effectively nonexistent punishment for abusive employers.

In Kuwait, where disregard for the plight of domestic workers appears normalized, a woman unsuccessfully attempted to overdose with items from employer’s house. Police investigations have again commenced to determine the woman’s motivation – as if the reasons for her agony could be separated from the life that sponsors almost entirely dictate and create. Another domestic worker attempted to commit suicide in her sponsor’s home as well, but was ‘thwarted’ by police, who then proceeded to interrogate her.

These suicides and suicide attempts come amidst promises for substantive legal change made by many countries; Kuwait agreed to increase the minimum wage for domestic workers, Saudi has promised more protections for its workers, and Lebanon’s minister announced the Kafala system’s forthcoming abolishment. Whether these agreements affect the lives of domestic workers and mitigate the conditions that preempt suicide – or whether they are lost into abyss of broken treaties and pacts – will, at least tangentially, be measured by this year’s suicide rate.

Originally posted on the Lebanese blog Ethiopian Suicides.

This news came just one day before the Guardian published a report about Lila, a Nepalese who was trafficked into slavery and committed suicide in Lebanon.

Originally posted on Ethiopian Suicides.

In late December, a maid was found hanging in her sponsor’s home. In January, three migrants committed suicide. One maid hung herself inside her room. A man also hung himself in his room. Another maid poisoned herself by consuming insecticide. Suicide is often the last resort for abused migrants who feel they have no other escape.

On New Years Eve, a Kuwaiti woman was charged for beating her maid to death.

Police investigations for each case are still in progress.

Migrant abuse represents a perpetual pattern in Kuwait. Measures are sometimes taken against specific instances of abuse, but there are rarely any attempts to address the chronic mistreatment of migrants.

The study also found that 6.3% of migrant workers entertain suicidal thoughts and 2.5% have attempted to take their own lives. The findings added to the growing collection of studies on the Emirate’s migrant workers; one such study conducted by the Dubai Police Department found the highest rates of suicide to be amongst Indians and other South Asians, who account for 90% of all suicides in Dubai. The conclusions corroborated an earlier study examining suicide patterns from 1992-2000, which found male expatriates to be the most likely to take their own lives.

The study was submitted to the Ministry of Labor with recommendations to legislate a minimum wage as well as a maximum 8 hour work day. Correlations between depression, wages and the number of hours worked, confirmed concerns voiced by migrant NGOs in the past. Given that long work days and low wages prevail throughout the Gulf, the consequences – as well as the proposed solutions – are likely pertinent across the region.

This suicides comes one day after CNN produced a damning report on abuse of domestic workers in Lebanon. In this report, Nadim Houry from human rights watch quotes the Ethiopian ambassador who had told him: “I’m no longer running an embassy here. I’m running a morgue”.

While details of this woman’s case are still unknown, migrant suicides in custody can be better understood in the context of the general vulnerabilities they face in Gulf legal systems; the difficulty in maneuvering about a system in a foreign language, and in securing representation or other legal aid, compounds the tendency towards unfair migrant treatment to generate extraordinarily uncertain and frightening situations for detained migrants. While a complexity of factors drive an individual to commit suicide, the overwhelming powerlessness of custody can, for some, signify the tipping point.

Though the circumstances her death are largely speculative without a complete investigation, it’s worth noting the innocuous nature of her arrest; she was imprisoned for absconding from her sponsors, a “crime” which in itself reflects the inequitable nature of the Kuwaiti justice system.

A Daily Star article sheds light on the campaign objectives which are to raise awareness of “the often dangerous conditions which foreign domestic workers endure in Lebanon and to urge authorities to implement the relevant legislation needed to protect them.”

The campaign features a TV ad which can also be found on you tube and dozens of billboard posters which fill the city in an attempt to attract as much attention as possible. It reads, “Don’t push her to commit your crime: toward legal protection for domestic workers in Lebanon.”

In their press release, KAFA pointed out basic inalniebale rights that are denied off the majority of workers in Lebanon such as the right to rest, travel and communicate and the right to keep their own private documents, such as passports.

Kudos to Kafa and to all other organistions in Lebanon working on advocacy laws that protect domestic workers from all cycles of abuse and violence they are constantly vulernable to.