Domestic Workers in Lebanon Are Making a Dramatic Escape

Equip is a business in Lebanon that is trying to prevent further abuse of domestic workers, by helping them communicate better with their employers. “Their business model relies on employers paying for the company’s services, which range from $10 to $550, and include English lessons, first-aid training, legal translation, and conflict mediation.”

A new law seeks to protect vulnerable guest workers and unwary businesses from unscrupulous recruiters by requiring them to register with the state and meet certain requirements.

Part 2 of a series on solutions to freeing victims of labor trafficking around the globe. With the help of organizations like Damayan Migrant Workers Association in New York, former victims who have been freed from labor trafficking become advocates for others, demanding changes and becoming part of the solution to a vicious cycle of worker victimization.

For decades, migrant workers in Florida have been employed under dreadful conditions, picking produce without breaks under extreme temperatures and women being sexually harassed. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers has demanded that growers increase wages, mandate rest breaks, and prohibit sexual harassment. The Coalition has partnered with big food companies, notably McDonald’s, Yum Brands, and Walmart, which have pledged to buy only from growers who follow these standards.

The Equal Justice Center helps people who have experienced issues in the workplace like wage theft, labor trafficking and discrimination get justice against their employers.

After a series of protests, petitions, and various attempts to rectify the crushing debt faced by NYC medallion owners, a hunger strike finally led to victory for The New York Taxi Workers Alliance. The debt was capped at a fraction of its original amount, allowing taxi drivers to realistically pay off the loans.

Since its April 2018 founding in Malaysia, the Be My Protector app has enabled interventions in 120 cases of suspected human trafficking, sparked by anonymous reports that its app enables. In about a third of those cases, which mostly involved migrant workers in South and Southeast Asia, the victims were able to return to their homes, while others were offered counseling. But, like the more than 90 such apps available around the world, Be My Protector has struggled to make a big impact. Many such apps capitalize on a trendy subject without a clear focus on improving conditions and helping victims.

A first-of-its-kind worker-led program in Vermont is helping dairy migrant workers to "hold farmers, corporations, and suppliers in the dairy industry accountable for the rights of workers in their supply-chains through a legally-binding agreement." Although not all dairy farm operations have joined in the program as participants, it has been enacted on 64 farms and helped bolster wages and housing situations for migrant farmers.

The Fair Food Program, which educates and empowers farmworkers to report on-the-job sexual harassment, has all but eliminated sexual assaults at participating farms in an industry that otherwise is known for vast power imbalances between migrant labor and labor contractors. By giving employers key business incentives to participate and by cracking the code of silence among workers, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers-run FFP has protected employees by educating tens of thousands of them while enforcing standards through a rigorous investigation and hearings process.

Host governments tend to be wary of allowing refugees to move freely and work legally. However, integrating refugees into the labor market as quickly as possible reduces the concentration of newcomers in the informal sector, benefiting both locals and refugees in the long run.