Najla playing the "Passport game" - a sort of warm up before starting this morning. We all got our Universal Passport, had it stamped and were guaranteed the same rights and freedom of movement. Credit. Hough/Caritas
By Najla Chahda, director of Caritas Lebanon Migrant Centre
Yesterday, I arrived at Beirut International Airport to come here to the conference in Senegal and following immigration control, I saw a woman sleeping on the floor with blood coming from her nose. I went to talk to her and found out that she was from Bangladesh and her employer had brought her there.
I got the airport doctor to come and he said she was haemorrhaging in her stomach – that’s why the blood was dripping from her nose. The woman gave me the employer’s number in Arabic but when I called him, he said he’d signed the release papers for her at the airport and she was no longer his responsibility.
This is the type of case that Caritas Lebanon deals with. Migrant women come to Lebanon and the employers pay around $50 for a false medical insurance to cover bureaucratic needs. Some of the migrant women believe they’ve got health coverage but they haven’t. Continue reading
