Another story this morning (in addition to WVON's post about similar problems in Afghanistan) about a group of women who find themselves in such awful situations that death seems preferable to continuing to exist under such conditions.
The South African Independent online reports on the plight of Nepalese women working as maids in Lebanon. Apparently there have been 15 suicides within a year as a result of physical, sexual, emotional and financial abuse at the hands of their employers.
It seems that the common theme here is a feeling of powerlessness - despite Nepal issuing a ban on women travelling to Lebanon to work, financial factors drive them to go anyway, and once there, they are almost entirely at the mercy of the people employing them.
More than 18000 Nepalese people work in Lebanon and 95% of them are women. But when the choice is poverty at home or unbelievable levels of abuse abroad, is it any real surprise that some unfortunate women end up feeling utterly hopeless?
