News updates

Maya Bacha and Meryal Khayat won the Femme Francophone Entrepreneur Award 2018 organised by the Agence Universitaire Francophone (AUF), Berytech, L’Orient Le Jour and Le Commerce du Levant magazine at the Innovation and Sport Campus, USJ. Each winner received 10,000 euros, noting that contestants were 90 women in total, five of whom were short listed for the finals. To recall, Bacha is the founder of ‘Sidelick’ for pet care, and Khayat started ‘Kulluna’ fund which embraces various made in Lebanon products and targets mainly the Lebanese expatriates. On the participation of women in the labor market, Caroline Fattal, board member at Fattal and founder of ‘Stand for Women’ association, voiced regret over the low female representation (23%) in the labor market, and the meagre percentage (4%) in top leadership positions in Lebanon and the region, while they make more than half of university graduates. (L’Orient Le Jour, September 28, 2018)

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In the continuing violence against children, a baby girl was found Monday in a suitcase on Saida’s corniche close to Saida Rest House. Security forces arrived at the scene for investigation, while the baby was transferred, reportedly in good health, to Saida Government Hospital by the Popular Rescue team. Upon investigation and surveillance, the South Prosecutor General, Judge Rahif Ramadan, arrested yesterday the suspect Najah K, Syrian, who was found to be the mother of the baby girl. The mother admitted that a few days after her birth, she put her newborn in a suitcase that contained diapers on the coastal sidewalk. On the other hand, Hemaya Association for Community Development launched its campaign, ‘dawwi ‘al ghalat’ yesterday at the Serail to raise awareness about violence against children in Lebanon. One out of four kids is exposed to violence and one out of six is sexually abused, according to the head of the association, Lilia Sabbagh. In about 80% of the cases, the perpetrator is a member of the family or knows the victim very well, she said. In turn, Hemaya executive manager, Luma Yazbek, stressed the need for more awareness to this end. (Al Akhbar, Al Mustaqbal, September 28, 2018)

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After the Parliament approved in August a draft bill combating sexual violence and violence against women (https://goo.gl/aDxbda),France fined a man with 300 euros and sentenced him to 3 months in prison for physical abuse against a pedestrian according to the new law criminalizing street harassment. In the details as reported by the BBC, the assailant, apparently drunk, boarded the bus in Ervy, south of Paris, and slapped a 21-year-old woman making vulgar remarks about her looks. This led to a squabble between him and the bus driver who locked the bus doors until the police arrived at the scene. This is the first fine in France in enforcement of the new anti-harassment legislation aimed to slash sexist insults and street harassment, including, catcalling and rude sexual remarks. On the incident, the minister who was behind enacting the law, Marlene Schiappa, praised the decision of the court in a tweet, “We thank the bus driver for his quick reaction and the court for the penalty imposed.” (Al Mustaqbal, September 27, 2018)
 

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An Nahar reported yesterday that some 10,000 women reacted positively to testing for breast cancer in 2016, pointing to an increase in the number which doubled to reach 20,000 women in 2017. In this respect, a report released recently by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC)- WHO, indicated that cancer incidence rates in Lebanon were the highest among West Asian countries in relation to population size. The report pointed out that there are 242 cancer patients for every 100,000 persons, 17,294 new incidences during 2018, and some 8976 cancer mortalities. According to the WHO report, the rates of the new cancer cases were 8485 women against 8809 men and the number of mortalities during 2018 were 3983 female deaths against 4993 males. The number of cancer patients in five years stood at 41,843 persons, 22,250 of which were women and 19,593 were men, the report said. Globally, the report pointed to 18.1 million new incidences in 2018 and the death of 9.6 million people. In figures, the breast cancer posted the highest rate (18.6%) among the total new 3219 incidences, followed by bladder cancer (10.5% - 1820 cases), lung cancer (9.5% - 1641 cases), prostate cancer (8.7% - 1507cases) and colon cancer (8.5% - 1463 cases). For more info, kindly visit the link below: (https://bit.ly/2IcJlow). (Al Akhbar, An Nahar, September 25, 2018)
 

The Director General of Personal Status at the ministry of interior, Brigadier General Elias Khoury, issued a circular on September 19 giving Lebanese women the right to obtain individual registers for her underage children. The civil registrars, the circular said, are asked to accept applications submitted by Lebanese women, irrespective of their marital status (whether married, divorced or widowed) that are included in the records, each within their legal power. The circular stressed that the above measure does not exempt the Lebanese woman from presenting the remaining documents required by the concerned public departments to complete any other procedure. To note, the personal status circular followed a previous memorandum allowing divorced Lebanese women to include their children in their civil register (https://goo.gl/bmVosi). On the new memo, Lina Abu Habib, Executive Director of Women’s Learning Partnership for Rights, Development and Peace (WLP), said in an interview with L’Orient Le Jour, that the step was small and reforms slow, nevertheless, it is considered a positive achievement that does not offer much to gender equality campaigners. Abu Habib wondered if such a measure was only an embellishment, demanding the amendment of personal status laws and liberating them from religious authority and sectarianism. And while Abu Habib did not play down the above measure, she asked about the fate of more important issues like for example, inheritance or travel permissions for children, noting that the two measures confirm that the family connection involves both parents, and hence the importance of allowing women to confer nationality to their children. (An Nahar, L’Orient Le Jour, September 24, 25, 2018)

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Divorced Lebanese women allowed to included children in their personal registry