Ghada founded and currently leads the anti-trafficking division at Kafa, an advocacy group dedicated to combating gender- and sexual-based violence in Lebanon. She works on supporting women in prostitution and advocating for their rights. As the Syrian crisis intensified, her work expanded to serve the growing needs of refugees streaming into her country. Ghada sees prostitution as a form of male violence against women and is fighting for legal changes in Lebanon and across the Arab world that shift the criminal burden to profiteers and buyers of sex. As she says, “I cannot conceive that a country could reach gender equality while allowing its women to be bought and sold. I am therefore part of the abolitionist movement in the world that calls for a society free of prostitution, and where persons selling sex are never to be criminalized (which is not the case in Lebanon, yet) but instead supported to exit prostitution if they wish so; and where the sex industry, including traffickers, pimps and sex buyers, is criminalized as an imperative to prevent exploitation.”
