Simba Russeau awarded for documenting Lebanon's domestic workers

Simba Russeau is being awarded the Every Human Has Rights Media Award at a ceremony in Paris on December 6. The prize is in recognition of Russeau’s unrelenting work on behalf of domestic workers in Lebanon.

By GERT VAN LANGENDONCK

Simba Russeau describes herself as a ‘multimedia storyteller.’ R.R.

BEIRUT, November 13, 2008 (MENASSAT) – Simba Russeau’s path is not a common one. A US citizen of Senegalese descent, Russeau came to Lebanon as a budding photojournalist after spending several tough years living on the streets in New York City.

It was this experience, combined with her skin color, that set her on her chosen path: to document the lives of Asian and African domestic workers in the Middle East.

“The topic chose me,” she says. “The treatment of the domestic workers in Lebanon reminded me of when I was used to clean houses for a living myself back in the States. And of my own mom, who used to tell me, ‘You are dark-skinned, so you are made to clean.’”

An African-American may be getting ready to enter the White House through the front door, but in the Middle East, old habits die hard.

‘One of them’

The (African) wife of the Belgian chargé d’affaires in Beirut once told me how much she hated her time in Lebanon. She may have been a diplomat’s wife – and a member of the former royal family of Burundi to boot – but in Lebanon she would always be treated like a maid.

It is an experience Russeau can relate to. When she first visited MENASSAT’s offices in Beirut, she had a hard time convincing our building security that she hadn’t come to clean.

“Because of my skin color, the Lebanese automatically assume I am a maid from Ethiopia,” she says. On the plus side, the domestic workers made the same assumption. “They immediately accepted me as one of them.”

This has opened doors for Russeau that would otherwise have stayed closed to an outsider. She found out that there was a thriving African nightlife scene in Beirut, where clubs have a strict “No Lebanese” door policy. She discovered that some female domestic workers prostitute themselves, and that they meet their male Lebanese clients after Sunday mass at Lebanon’s Christian churches.

Russeau isn’t a typical journalist who gets the most out of a story, then moves on to the next topic.

A “multi-media storyteller” in her own words, she has stuck with the same topic for several years now, telling the story again and again in different formats, from print and online journalism over photography to radio reporting.

And she has taken journalism in an unexpected direction, giving media workshops to the children of domestic workers and refugees in Lebanon, in which she had them interview each other about their experiences and prejudices.

‘Not sexy’

It is this body of work, some of which has been published on MENASSAT, that caught the attention of the jury of the Every Human Has Rights Media Awards, a prize created to coincide with the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration on December 10, 2008.

In all, 30 winners were selected out of 482 applications with stories focusing on 108 countries. The winners are awarded an all expenses paid trip to Paris from December 5th to December 11th, 2008. On Saturday December 6th, they will attend the Every Human Has Rights campaign celebration, including the Awards Ceremony.

At the ceremony, six awards ranging from EUR1,000-2,000, will be given out. An additional prize of the public for “the most eye-opening story” will be given, based on the number of votes it has received on the campaign’s website.

You can vote for Simba Russeau here. For a list of all the winners, go here.

For Russeau, the award brings welcome attention to the plight of domestic workers.

“Two documentary films have been made about domestic workers in Lebanon, and a French TV report caused a bit of a stir when it was aired. But other than that, the media are not very interested in the issue, not the Western media and not the Arab media either. It is not considered a sexy subject.”

Awareness campaigns by human rights organizations and the Lebanese government have shed some light recently on what some call “modern-day slavery.”

And there is some progress, says Russeau.

The Philippines have recently adopted a “labor export program,” which requires foreign employers to pay a minimum wage of $400 per month. (In Lebanon, it is not unusual for live-in maids to be paid a mere $100 per month.) And there is talk of Ethiopia and Sri Lanka issuing a travel ban for workers headed to the Middle East.

“But people will keep coming regardless,” says Russeau. “The only real change can come from countries like Lebanon changing and enforcing their labor laws.”