At first glance, you'd think they were tourists putting up at
dormitories - all spread out comfortably on mattresses or bunker
beds and chatting cheerfully. The salubrious surroundings add to
the relaxed atmosphere as sunlight pours in from the balconies
attached to the rooms. The building itself is the beautiful Mar
Touma monastery located on a hill some 25 kilometres away from the
Syrian capital, Damascus.

"Hello, ladies!" I say to them through the open French windows.
"May I come in?" The group of Filipinos greets me with enthusiasm:
"Hello and welcome!" They beckon to me, sitting up on the beds and
straightening their clothes as I climb over the railing. "This is a
lovely place and you folks seem to be having a nice time," I
comment.

"We are happy and are enjoying ourselves although we are running
from a war!" one of them says and they all laugh.

I walk up to a small group of women who are sitting on the floor
in the middle of the room. They are in the midst of lunch but are
eager to talk to me. "We are happy because we are safe," says
Elizabeth Salvation. "More importantly, we are relieved to get away
from our employers," she adds. Beth, as she is known to her family
and new-found friends, is obviously echoing the sentiments of
several women in the room. "Yes!" they scream and clap their hands
spontaneously.

Beth and her friends are among the over 13,000 foreign migrant
workers who have been evacuated by the International Organization
for Migration (IOM) from Lebanon since 20 July. With funding from
the European Commission and the US government, IOM has sponsored or
arranged for their stay at various shelters in Syria, and provided
food and medical attention to evacuees as they wait to fly back
home.

IOM has worked in collaboration with the monastery to house this
group of Filipinos as it has with many other groups of stranded
migrants evacuated by the Organization. These women have spent a
longer time in transit in Syria than some of the other groups,
allowing them time to recover a little from the trauma of the
bombardment they'd witnessed and the chance to relax a bit.

Many migrant workers have reported that their employers in
Lebanon were kind and even brought them to their respective
embassies so they could escape the war. In fact, one Lebanese
expatriate in the US sent me an email a few weeks ago, asking how
his family back in Beirut could contact IOM as they wanted to send
a Sri Lankan domestic worker home. However, a large number of
foreign migrant workers have complained of cruelty and abuse of
varying degrees by their employers.

In Beth's case, she had had a decent working relationship with
her employers. However, things changed when the bombing began and
she told them that she was scared and wanted to return to the
Philippines. They refused to let her go. As the bombing
intensified, she repeated her request, saying that she was too
afraid to work. "I told them that I wasn't Lebanese and it was not
my home. So, please let me go," she explains.

Beth reenacts the scene, talking animatedly as she shows me how
her "madam" clutched her arm and pushed her against the wall. "Look
at these bruises," she says. The discolouration of the skin on her
upper arm is evident as her friend pulls up the sleeve of her
shirt. Beth claims she was locked up in a room for a few days and
had the key to the flat taken away. She was told she couldn't leave
in the middle of her contract and that she'd have to pay them USD
1,200 if she wanted to go.

The 39-year-old decided to try and outsmart her ruthless
employers. "I stopped complaining and said I was sorry. I resumed
my chores around the house," she explains. "They thought I'd given
up and handed the key back to me. I pretended I was my old self
again but quietly packed some of my things. And do you know what I
did," she asks with a broad grin. "One day, I took out the garbage
as usual. No one knew that I'd put my belongings in the garbage
bags! So I walked out of the house without raising any
suspicion."

Not all the migrant workers were as lucky. Many women whose
employers were preventing them from leaving were nevertheless
determined to escape. They jumped out of windows or clambered down
walls even if it meant falling down and breaking limbs. "I escaped
from the window of a two-storey building," one woman says. "I was
brave, wasn't I?"; she laughs as her friends cheer loudly.

Another woman says that she was forced to work at her employer's
mother and friend's home as well for no additional payment. "I lost
10 kilogrammes in the 11 months I spent in Lebanon," she says.
"They never gave me adequate food. All the food was locked away in
the refrigerator and I wasn't allowed to touch it."

Thirty-year-old Jovelyn Augustin appears a bit introverted. "I
pray all the time," she says and leads me to the chapel at the
monastery. There, she breaks into tears. She found out only
recently that her husband was dying of cancer in the Philippines.
Her employers had tried to keep that information from her. The
mother of three begged them to let her go back home so she could
look after her ailing husband. They refused. "I worked with the
family for 11 months and they haven't paid me anything. My family
needs money and I don't have any even after working so hard," she
sobs.

We leave the chapel to join the rest of the group. They've
gathered on the terrace and one of the women is entertaining
everyone with a song. Later, the others join in for a Filipino
song. The women request IOM staff - who reside at the monastery to
take care of the evacuees - to play music. "Let's dance," one woman
suggests and some of her friends follow eagerly, turning it into an
impromptu party.

It's a happy sight but the singing and dancing belie the
suffering and agony that many of them have endured, some even
before the bombing began. Ironically, for many migrant workers, the
conflict may have brought a much-appreciated opportunity to escape
from unkind or abusive employers even though life back home will be
difficult.

As the others sing and dance, Jovelyn looks on pensively. She's
preoccupied with thoughts of a sick husband back home and what the
future holds.

The claims of abuse and maltreatment
cannot be verified. These are individual testimonies of some of the
migrant workers evacuated from Lebanon.