2,262 stranded domestic workers in Lebanon evacuated

The evacuation, which was supervised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration followed a series of experiences shared by the Ghanaians from their hosts in Lebanon.

According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the condition of most of these Ghanaian domestic workers is heartbreaking hence the need to put in measures to move them back to Ghana.

The Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Charles Owiredu said an extensive rescue mission, was undertaken between June 19 and September18, this year to evacuate the domestic workers.

He said based on distressed calls from Ghanaians living outside, four groups were created, which were those who could afford their traveling expenses, those who were on government business travels, deportees, and those who were distressed.

He said: "We had so many calls coming in from our brothers and sisters living abroad so government tasked MFARI to develop a strategy to be able to bring back our people, hence the development of the four categories."

He added that the government spent over $1,062,600 was spent on the mission by the government with a contribution of $634,150 and $428,450 respectively from Kennedy Agyapong, the Member of Parliament for Assin Central, and friends to evacuate the stranded Ghanaians from the Middle East.

Speaking to the media on the evacuation exercise by the government, he said "Considering that majority of the girls were not paid any salaries, Travel Certificates (TCs) were issued free of charge instead of the usual USD35 fee."

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He said some of the evacuees arrived with various illnesses, including nine mentally-ill patients, adding that more than 80 percent of them had part or all of their accumulated salaries not paid adding that some also had their passports confiscated by their employers and Lebanese agents.

Most of the victims were recruited from their towns and villages by agents who made false promises, collected monies from them, or got them to commit their future initial pay cheques to them, Charles Owiredu stated.

Speaking on the cost of testing for COVID-19 and 14-day quarantine and provision of psychological support for the evacuees, he said the government will pay.

"The advent of the COVID-19 pandemic further aggravated the precarious situation of the domestic workers as their employers are unable to pay them their salaries, yet they dared not talk about their cumulated salaries but rather forced to work under very inhumane conditions," he said.

Dr. Winfred Nii Okai Hammond, Ambassador Extraordinaire and Plenipotentiary to Egypt, Lebanon, and Sudan on his part said: "Quite a number of them were issued with passports bearing names different from their own names with already acquired visas."

"Because of our government's policy in 2017 that such intended domestic migrant workers should not be allowed to travel to the Gulf States and the Middle East countries, some of them paid their way through at the Kotoka International Airport, while many of them were smuggled through neighboring countries to fly out to their destinations," he added.