'Human Being' fashion show for Lebanon's domestic helps

Fashion show is part of an effort to humanise an estimated 250,000 foreign domestic workers who toil in the kitchens and living rooms.

Anna Fernando struts down the black-and-white tiles of a trendy coffee shop in the Lebanese capital, dressed in high heels and a strapless ball gown of caramel gauze ribbons.
The 43-year-old left her native Sri Lanka 21 years ago to work as a maid in Lebanon, determined to provide her children with better opportunities in life than her own.
On her day off this weekend, she joined a dozen other domestic workers at a modelling show in central Beirut organised by local NGO Insan, Arabic for "human being".
"Even if I work like a maid, I'm a human being," Anna says backstage, her eyes thick with mascara before her name is called to show off the work of young Lebanese designers.
Sunday's fashion show is part of an effort to humanise an estimated 250,000 foreign domestic workers who toil in the kitchens and living rooms of Lebanese families.
Now in its fourth year, the show aims to give participants the opportunity to be seen as something other than the hired help.
"In Lebanese society, they live like all other women when they're not at work," says Randa Dirani, one of the organisers.
"At this fashion show we want to tell all these people we are not only domestic workers," Sumy Khan from Bangladesh says.
The 22-year-old with short hair and tattoos says she would have loved to have studied journalism at home in Bangladesh, but that she had to leave two years ago to support her family.
As she paraded down the catwalk in a short cream-and-white onesie between Lebanese and foreigners huddled along its edge, cameras in hand, her friends whooped and clapped in support.
Standing out among the models on Sunday, Alix Lenoir, a 20-year-old Franco-Lebanese student of industrial design, says she decided to join to connect with other participants.
"I think it's a shame that these women in our society in Lebanon have had a little of their confidence taken away from them," she says.
"When they go out, they go out among themselves - not with other people."
By the end of the evening, Lenoir is hugging one of her fellow models - 18-year-old Iman Bachir, the daughter of migrant workers from Sudan - and promising to meet up soon. - AFP

• MENA