migrant worker beaten and comitted suicide

On March 8, 2012, the Lebanese TV Channel LBCI broadcasted a video filmed on February 24 by a passer-by, showing a recruiting agent beating Alem Dechasa-Desisa in front of the Ethiopian consulate in Beirut. Despite her resistance, the agent and another man forced her into a car. LBCI identified the man who was beating the young woman as Ali Mahfouz, brother of the person in charge of the recruitment agency through which Alem Dechasa-Desisa came to Lebanon. Ali Mahfouz accepted to talk on TV and stated that his brother's agency was trying to repatriate the woman who suffered from mental health issues. The police arrived shortly after the incident, the car was still there, and took Alem Dechasa-Desisa to a detention center. The police officers transferred her two days laterin a medical institution, but did not arrest the men who bet her. Forced to travel according to the Lebanese law on foreigners, even though she had deeply fallen into debt to come work to Lebanon, Alem Dechasa-Desisa committed suicide at Deir al-Saleeb psychiatric hospital, on March 14.