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Migrant Domestic Workers in ADs

On August 5, 2011

This is a new advertisement from Money Gram, intended at being funny. In one of the videos, it shows a Filipino man speaking with a Lebanese man and in the other video the Lebanese woman is speaking to a Srilankan. Reality is in both videos, it is a voice over by a Lebanese man making fun of the 2 accents. These jokes are very common in Lebanon, where it is also a common thing to call all migrant domestic women, regardless of their 15 possible nationalities, "Srilankiyi". It is no more a nationality. It has become a noun in Lebanese context.

It is important to always remember that the situation of migrant domestic workers in Lebanon is severely in crisis not just because of the non-existent labour rights for them but also because of rampant levels of racism.

A blogger reports about this ad here here.