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To commemorate International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women today, Human Rights Watch is bringing to attention to the abuse of immigrant and domestic workers. Researchers have examined cases of physical and sexual violence committed against women from Indonesia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and the Philippines who work in countries in the Middle East and Asia to conclude that governments largely fail in holding criminal employers accountable. Immigrant women employed in domestic work in countries such as Lebanon, Singapore and Malaysia away from their home often have little recourse for justice when instances of abuse occur. With their line of work generally excluded from official labor law protections, domestic workers are doubly vulnerable if they are immigrants. In many cases, employers who beat, rape and sometimes murder their immigrant employees use the threat of tenuous work visas and deportation as a means of intimidation. As Human Rights Watch notes, these variables factor into lackluster judicial recourse for abused women. <\/p>\n