Defining the actors:
- Women: wanting to migrate to the Middle East, and returnees as well as those (friends or family) working in Lebanon
- Private sector: agencies (legal/informal – trafficking)
- Government: labour office, women’s affairs – Lebanese representation in Ethiopia
- Non governmental or Inter governmental actors: international development bodies (UNDP – UN Development Programme, IOM – International Organization for Migration), lawyers (EWLA – Ethiopian Women Lawyers Association), local NGOs or organizations (?), religious institutions or organizations near to the church/islam (?)
- Academia/ Media: how female migration is perceived in Ethiopian society
Our fieldwork in Addis Ababa began by defining the actors we wanted to contact, besides the women themselves, to understand the phenomenon of women migration. The principal actors were established as being: the government, the private sector (agencies) and non governmental actors including international development bodies like the UNDP or the IOM, but also local associations like the EWLA or local organizations that provide in anyway support to the women. Finally, we will try to understand how the phenomenon of women’s migration is perceived in Ethiopian media and society.
Defining the places:
- aeroport of Bole
- immigration office where the women get their passports done
- employment agencies
1st Day
Today we interviewed Mahdere Paulos, the director of the Ethiopian Women lawyers Association, and Dawit and Asefach from the Counter-trafficking unit of the IOM. From their accounts emerges a recapitulation of the emergence of the issue of human traffic. The first complaints and distress calls from women were filed at the EWLA at the end of the 90’s. The EWLA decided to engage themselves in the case of Teshiwork, an Ethiopian woman accused of murdering her employer in XXx and sentenced to death. Other cases that lead to media interest involved the death of domestic workers in Lebanon, which seems to be very prominent in the abuse of these workers.
The first surveys and information round tables on the situation were financed by the IOM at the beginning of the year 2000 and led to the creation of a specialised unit in the organization. Since then and until now, the IOM has taken the lead in tackling the issue. An inquiry commission of the Ethiopian government lead to the establishment of an Ethiopian consulate in Beirut, to give support to the workers.
At the moment the government gives legal permits to employment agencies, which number around 60, although informal traffickers are still at work. Advocacy of the EWLA has led to a change of the Criminal Code on 2005 to include cases of forced labour and higher fines for human traffic.
The IOM collaborates with the government now to “manage labour migration” (in IOM terminology) that is, to prepare agencies for example in convenient pre-departure programs to prepare the women for migration. The IOM unit has also followed up with a series of brochures, conferences at schools and a weekly radio program to create awareness on the risks of informal work migration. Women migrating seem to be young (18 to 25), school dropouts and with little or no chances in the local labour market, who are mostly unaware of the risks they are taking. Legal migration involves registering with an employment agency which does not charge the worker with fees for the recruitment (everything has to be paid by the future employer) and can be held accountable for the wellbeing of the worker. Illegal migration or human traffic is used to define the case where these woman resort to brokers that charge the women with enormous fees to find them work and where the woman find themselves working for up to a year to pay back for the recruitment.
