The General Directorate of General Security, the information office, issued on April 25, a clarification related to migrant domestic worker, Lensa, whose case instigated a sit-in called for by the ‘This is Lebanon’ facebook page after an attempt to flee her employer’s residence for being regularly beaten and broke her both legs after jumping from the second floor (https://bit.ly/2jjn9O2). The General Security statement said that, after hearing Lensa’s testimony, it came to the conclusion that she has been working for 7 months at her sponsor’s and that she has not been ill-treated or abused and regularly received her monthly pay. Her fall, the statement went on to say, was a mere accident, and that she slid when she was hanging the laundry. Lensa is reportedly back to her employer’s after being discharged from the hospital. Meanwhile, in its follow-up of the case, L’Orient Le Jour cited Lensa’s aunt who confirmed that her niece was physically abused and that she was pressured by her employer, a renowned couturist, into recanting her story for fear of having to cover all the treatment expenses. L’Orient Le Jour pointed out that following the uproar in the media, the employer sent on April 26 a sum of USD 450 to Lensa’s mother in Ethiopia after dispatching earlier in February another sum of USD 291, totalling USD 741 in compensation for a 9-month work, (equivalent to only USD 82 each month), a fact the newspaper described as tantamount to slavery. The aunt, to recall, has clarified that the first three months have been paid back to the recruiting agency. (L’Orient Le Jour, April 30, 2018)
