Trafficking in human beings: human rights and ... - unesdoc - Unesco

is a valid contract it is not adhered to. In some urban cleaning fi rms, for example, there
are collective contracts that provide for the transfer of workers from one fi rm to another,
according to the needs of the fi rms. Despite this, employees are often dismissed when a
contract with the client ends. Immigrant workers are usually given the worst working
hours, those that no one else wants, but which they agree to because they have no other
alternative. They work, for example, three hours in the morning, and possibly a further
three hours in the afternoon, with a different contract for each period. These irregular
working hours make life particularly complicated for single [women] because arranging
childcare is not easy. The short hours also mean that they often earn less than €180 a
month. In the case of live-in domestic employees, there are no fi xed working hours and
they can be on call almost 24-hours a day. Indeed the employer’s family assumes that
they should be available day and night, depriving them of freedom, privacy, or social
life. Cases in which women, especially live-in domestic employees and those repressed by
their husbands or partners, were working in situations that could be considered forced
labour. These situations included such practices as retention of passports, often on the
pretext that it was necessary for the legalisation process, confi nement at the workplace,
and control over contacts with the outside world. Long working hours of up to 60 to 70
hours per week, sometimes more: Workers often only have one day off a week, and have
to work on national holidays without being paid overtime for doing so. This was one of
the most common complaints of the immigrant workers interviewed; Payment of wages
at a rate that is less than the rate stipulated in the collective bargaining agreement. There
is, however, a difference of opinion regarding this practice. The absence of a written
contract of employment for foreign workers is common, even if employers are making the
required Social Security contributions.
In the face of increasing frustrations with the defi nition of traffi cking, or perhaps more
its representations, and the ensuing classifi cation of people as traffi cked victims as well
as the implementation of traffi cking legislation, it is important to identify the extent to
which migrant domestic workers, who have entered a country legally and with contracts,
can be considered as having been traffi cked. It is also important to determine who are the
traffi ckers involved. Recent surveys in Lebanon and in Cairo, Egypt have identifi ed UN
convention violations in terms of wages, conditions and treatment of migrant domestic
workers that suggest a signifi cant proportion may be classifi ed as traffi cked persons. For
example, Articles 13, 23 and 24 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights are
being violated daily against foreign domestic workers in the Middle East. These relate
to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment; the freedom of movement; the right to free
choice of employment; to just and favourable conditions of work; the right to equal pay
for equal work; the right to form and join trade unions; the right to rest and leisure,
including reasonable limitations of working hours and periodic holidays with pay. 394
However, the question arises whether the harm done to workers on arrival at their place
of work should be classifi ed (and assisted) as victims of traffi cking or as exploited workers.
One could argue that not all harms done to migrants can be classifi ed as traffi cking
394 Jureidini, R.: Traffi cking and Contract Migrant Workers in the Middle East.
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