BEIRUT: Loud screams break the quiet of a Beirut neighborhood in the early hours of Sunday, June 15: It's Angelique, a 26-year-old domestic worker from Congo, crying for the police as she runs to the balcony. From inside the apartment, a man's voice yells her name, swearing in Arabic and French. There are the sounds of fists and slaps and more screams, before all falls silent. "I have only six months left and then I will go back to the Congo," says Angelique, speaking to IRIN from across the balcony the next morning. "You see, Madame has cut off all of my hair. Every day I clean and cook. I sleep on the floor in the kitchen and I can't take any more of this life." Angelique escaped the conflict in her country and traveled to Lebanon on a six-year contract to work as a house maid. Woken daily at 5:30 a.m., she works 18 hours...
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