Antislavery Usable Past

Jessie

2016 (Narrative date)

There are an estimated 10,000 people living in modern slavery in Lebanon (GSI 2018). Human traffickers exploit domestic and foreign people in Lebanon, and people from the country abroad. Women and girls from South and Southeast Asia and an increasing number from East and West Africa are subjected to domestic servitude in Lebanon. Lebanese government officials and NGOs report most employers withhold their workers passports, putting them at risk of trafficking. NGOs also report that abuse of domestic is underreported. Many migrant workers arrive in Lebanon through legal employment agencies, but are subsequently exploited or abused by their employers; some employment agencies recruit workers through fraudulent or false job offers.

Jessie travelled from Kenya to Lebanon to take up employment as a domestic worker. She was subjected to long hours and sexual harassment from her employer. One day she finally decided to escape, tying bed sheets together and climbing out the window.

They don’t want you to dress nicely. They just want you to be a slave.

There was a time I was left in the house with the mister. He came to where I was sleeping and told me, “I want you.” I told him, “No. I am married.” He said, “You’re in my house. You have to obey my rules.”

I said, “Even if you want to kill me, it’s okay. I can’t have sex with you.”

“I can’t. I’ll tell your wife.” He said, “If you do, I’ll shoot you.” He put his gun here and threatened me. That was my worst day in Lebanon.

That day I was feeling so down. I was fed up. I couldn’t take it anymore. I took my three bedsheets and tied them – and used them to get down.

I was scared, but because of what I was going through I decided that dying, it’s better than to go through what I was going through.

I called the agent and told him about the situation. He said, “you came here to work, not to play.” I tried to explain, “Yes, I came to work, but the conditions…” “This is not a normal life.”

Narrative as told to filmmakers for The Secret Slaves of the Middle East. Credit is given to The Why Foundation and Documentary Filmmakers Puk Damsgaard & Søren Klovborg

https://www.thewhy.dk/projects/why-slavery

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWB0UfoChWY0B0f8nxa9LXAbKBBf4vFFS

Country

Theme

Domestic slavery

Tags

VOICES: Narratives by Survivors of Modern Slavery

This is the world's largest archive of modern slavery survivor narratives. Across more than a million words spoken or written by survivors of modern slavery, we can see why slavery persists in particular hotspots, analyse patterns in trafficking routes, identify vulnerabilities, understand more about the challenges survivors face in liberation, and discover new antislavery solutions. These narratives offer the chance to systematically design new antislavery strategies based on the experiences, ideas and solutions of enslaved people themselves.

The database is searchable by country, name, theme, and narrative date. Narratives can be viewed in list or map form. A short introduction provides context to each narrative. Narrative provenance appears after the main narrative text.

For ideas on how to use this database, please see our accompanying guide.

Project Lead: Zoe Trodd. Team Members: Andrea Nicholson, Lauren Eglen, Rosemary Pearce, Olivia Wright.

Project Funders: AHRC Antislavery Usable Past grant (2014-19), ESRC/AHRC PaCCS Modern Slavery: Meaning and Measurement grant (2016-19), and AHRC-GCRF Antislavery Knowledge Network grant (2017-2021).

For any queries about the collection please contact: rightslab@nottingham.ac.uk. If you wish to cite a particular narrative, please acknowledge the survivor’s name, the provenance of the narrative and cite: Voices Database, the Rights Lab, University of Nottingham.

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