Solidarity With Domestic Migrant Workers in Lebanon - International Women's Day

Sunday was a day to remember, as we all walked proudly with our shirts, made especially for this occasion, in Hamra street and then on Corniche el Manara. People couldn't help but look at us since we were walking in groups of twos and threes, because maybe for some, we looked like a football team.

Yesterday was beyond amazing. At first, we had a sit-in for Foreign Workers in Lebanon and to me the cause was something that matters more than I show because these people don’t have any other resort in a country that is not theirs and they don’t have anyone to fall back on.

At 2:00 pm, all the Feminist Collective members headed towards Hamra, Al-Madina theater and it was overwhelming for all of us. I got there with couple friends of mine at exactly 2:30, got a banner from my friend and stood with every one.

Then I started looking around and I asked myself: where are the foreign workers? Where are the girls to whome this issue matters the most? I know it matters to us but this is the biggest cause in their lives.

The more I looked, the more I realized that this was like the upper class protesting for the lower class, or white people for people of color. I’m not saying there is something wrong with that but in a way it always looks like the upper society is feeling sorry for the lower, poor and unfortunate people and I never liked that.

30 minutes later, the foreign workers came and they seemed very shy and reluctant to come and be a part of it. Can you blame them? Really. Afterwards, everyone started to encourage them to come into the middle which was the right thing to do-- they should be the middle of the sit-in. But it was obvious how uncomfortable it was for them.

And when they finally felt a bit encouraged, the cameraman from a tv station started to harass them to get more footage and after they refused to stand more he reacted very violently; he took his camera, said to his assistance in the meanest tone ever: “ emshe ya 3ame sho mana netrajehon” and they took off…

After that it was time for us to leave for our own sit-in.

We live in a country where people criticize the West for being racist and abusive to non white people, and we live in a country where the color of the skin does not seem to be an issue because we don’t have black and white but we do have non-Lebanese people... We don’t really see that when it comes to racism we are still where the west was 50 years ago.

Lebanese people tend to think they’re better than anyone who is not Lebanese, European or American. They don’t see it and don’t notice it but it's out there, and I think it will take a lot of time for this to change.

Zainab Nasser

Migrant Domestic Workers Rights sit-in - What an FC had to say

It was 2:10 pm as me and Layal were approaching Masra7 Al Madina in my car and the big shock was the humongous number of people who were there.  We were surprised to see all these people we didn't even know standing there while holding very colorful and meaningful posters in their hands and raising them up. 

We stood with them and we started realizing that they weren't people we knew, they weren't from the feminist collective, yet we didn't feel lost since all of them were there for this specific cause which is defending the rights of foreign workers in Lebanon.  I was amazed by the different nationalities and gender of people attending the event. 

As more feminists came and joined us, we felt more excited and more enthusiastic about defending our rights as women. Personally, I was thrilled to participate! I got goose bumps as one foreign worker started talking to one television station about her suffering and about her boss treating her like she was a slave! 

It's about time we open our eyes and truly see what is happening in our society, no matter what gender we are, no matter what nationality we have, no matter what religion we believe in, we are all humans and we will continue fighting for our rights as humans. 

We're not gonna take it, we're not gonna take it, we're not gonna take it anymore! Today was the launching of our cause, we will not give up and we won't stop until every woman in Lebanon has all her rights, no matter how long it's going to take, we will fight for it because we simply are feminists!

Farah Jaafar