Lorena's Epiphany

Unseen Lives

June 14, 2010 at 3:22 pm 7 comments

“For anyone living in Lebanon, witnessing the mistreatment of foreign domestic workers is unavoidable.. after January 4, 2010, the choice to remain silent was no longer an option. On that day, as I worked from my home in Beirut, a crowd gathered in the street below around the body of a Filipino woman who had fallen from the seventh floor balcony of her employer’s home. Theresa Seda was 28-years-old and had lived in Lebanon for only two months after leaving the Philippines in search of work to provide her three young children with an education.. “ written by photojournalist Matthew Cassel

Unseen Lives: Migrant Domestic Workers in Lebanon is an intimate glimpse into the the lives of Ethiopian, Sri Lankan, Filipino, and women of other nationalities employed as domestic workers in Lebanon. After a few months spent among this community, the women opened up to Matthew (and his camera). What the photographs reveal is a culture within our own. A culture we seldom pay attention to. A culture that comes alive outside the domestic chores and close supervision. A colorful, living, breathing culture. For example, did you know that there’s a Miss Ethiopia in Lebanon pageant?

Many of these domestic workers are mistreated, with their basic rights taken away for them. Thankfully, organizations are saying kafa (enough)! This exhibition is in fact part of KAFA’s violence and exploitation project that aims to protect the rights of migrant workers in Lebanon. We take so much for granted in Lebanon, but a person’s rights shouldn’t be one of them.
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The exhibition is no longer running, but you can see Matthew Cassel’s photographs on his website: Just Image

Entry filed under: Events, Exhibitions. Tags: Al Madina theatre, domestic, Exhibitions, exploitation, KAFA, Matthew Cassel, Migrant Workers, Photography, photojournalism.