Bengali migrant Safia D was hanging from a noose attached to a heating pipe when her employers found her in their apartment in Byblos, Lebanon, last November. Like thousands of other Southasian women in the West Asian country, 26-year old Safia had been working as a housemaid for a Lebanese family.
Safia's death was just one in a rapid succession of suicides by migrant domestic workers that were reported in Lebanon last autumn. In the space of less than two months, six or seven women from Ethiopia and Southasia were reported to have died after jumping from balconies or poisoning themselves with household detergent.
These deaths were reported by the local media, but were rarely given more than a few lines of coverage in the papers. Those who had jumped to their deaths from balconies were euphemistically reported to have 'fallen'. The authorities made scant attempts to investigate the deaths or look into what kind of abuse could have pushed these women to take their own lives.
The spate of suicides and attempted suicides in Lebanon has not slowed, and each month new cases are reported. In December, another Bengali woman, named only as 'S.I', was rushed to hospital in Bekaa after drinking a large quantity of detergent at her employer's home. Two Nepali women, Santi Maya and Lama Asmita, jumped from the balcony of an employment agency for migrant workers in February – Maya survived the fall but sustained serious injuries, and Asmita was killed.