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Marie-José Tayah and Farah Salka were both participants at the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women’s conference ‘Human trafficking, forced labour and modern slavery: understanding popular narratives and planning strategic action’, held in August 2017 in Bangkok, Thailand. Marie-José is the regional coordinator for Middle East and North Africa at the International Domestic Workers Federation and Farah works in the Anti Racism Movement in Lebanon. Beyond Trafficking and Slavery caught up with both of them between panels to discuss the history and current state of domestic work in Lebanon, and where it might go from here.
Cameron Thibos (oD): Marie-José, I recently heard you speak about the transition to migrant domestic workers in Lebanon. This is something you never hear about – what came before the status quo and how that shift came about. I was wondering if you could thus start us off by tracing that shift to migrant domestic labour in Lebanon.
