Other news

Women in Front completed yesterday its “Women in Municipalities” project and organized a closing ceremony under the auspices of the Minister of Interior and Municipalities, Nehad el Mashnook, and with the attendance of the US Ambassador to Lebanon, David Hale, in addition to a number of political, diplomatic and media figures as well as civil society activists.  The event included two discussion sessions the first of which focused on challenges that women face in public and political life, and was facilitated by former Minister Ziad Barud, and the President of the IT crimes and copyrights protection bureau, Major Suzanne Haje.  The second session discussed the reasons why women refrain from participating in political life and included the participation of former Minister Ibrahim Hajjar and Nada Zaarour of the Green party.
The Women in Municipalities project which Women in Front started implementing a year ago with funding from MEPI, aimed at encouraging women to participate in public life through mobilizing them to take part in municipality, legislative and trade union elections.  Training workshops were organized for some 70 women from different parts of Lebanon so as to allow them to develop community projects that will be useful to their local communities and that is after they successfully present themselves as candidates for the 2016 municipal elections.  

Source: Al-Diyar 30 September 2014

A hearing was held yesterday for the appeal in the case of the murder of Rola Yaakoob in order to hear the testimonials of new witnesses as per the decision of the accusatory body in North Lebanon which decided on the 30th of July 2014, to investigate the matter further.  Yaakoob’s family had organized a solidarity sit in outside the justice court in Tripoli while the case was being heard.  Yaakoob’s mother stated that her only request is for the investigation to extend as much as possible and ensure that no stone is left unturned as not to protect the killer.  The family lawyer, Raymond Yaakoob, also noted that matters are taking their due course.  He considered that hearing the new witnesses means that justice will be served.  He added that the accusatory body would not have requested to pursue the investigation of it was not convinced that there were loopholes in the process. Furthermore and according to the lawyer, witnesses reiterated their testimonials about Rola being subjected to continuous violence by her husband, adding that the new witnesses who knew Rola well also provided similar testimonials.  Lawyer Yaakoob concluded that the matter now depends on the decision of the accusatory body which can either endorse the earlier decision to release Yaakoob’s husband or re-open the file and proceed with a new investigation leading to a new trial.
Source: Al-Safir, Al-Akhbar, Al-Mustaqbal 30 September 2014

NCLW released the fourth Lebanon report on the implementation of CEDAW during an event held last Friday at the Bar Association in Beirut.  The event was under the auspices of the president of the Bar Association. Lawyer George Jreije, and recorded the participation of the Minister of Economy and Trade, Alain Hakim, MP Ghassan Moukhaiber, representatives of various ministries, the diplomatic corps, syndicates, international organizations and CSOs.
The Secretary General of the NCLW, Lawyer Fadi Karam, presented the current UN mechanisms for strengthening and monitoring women’s rights.  For her part, the president of the committee which prepared the report, Leila Azouri Jamhouri, noted the various steps which led to the compilation of the report.  She also highlighted the main legal achievements namely the new law to penalize trafficking (2011), abolishing clause 562 of the penal code (2011), adopting gender equality in tax waiver and in a number of NSSF laws (2013), adopting the law to protect women and family members from domestic violence (May 2014) and raising maternity leave in the private and public sectors to ten weeks (May 2014).
Source: Al-Mustaqbal, Al-Nahar, Al-Akhbar 29 September 2014
 

Violence against women remains rampant as As Safir newspaper relayed yet another story of a woman called Feyrouz who attempted to take her life a month ago by drinking a high dose of poison.  Feyrouz could no longer withstand her husband’s brutal and incessant violence which has gone on uninterrupted for three years and led to three miscarriages. She told As Safir newspaper that her husband beats her at least once a week.  He often returns home late and drunk and starts yelling at her, then slapping and kicking her in addition to throwing various utensils at her.  Feyrouz recalls that he was not like this in the beginning.  Ever since he left his work and started living off her meager income as a worker in a dairy factory, he became violent.  According to As Safir, Feyrouz left home more than once but came back for the sake of her four little children especially since her husband started to abuse them as well.  She called on her brother for help but to no avail.  Her final recourse was her failed attempt at suicide to put an end to her suffering.

Source: Al-Safir 24 September 2014

Judge Antoine Abou Zeid issued last week a protection order for the benefit of a woman victim of domestic violence perpetrated by her husband, her son and her daughter in law in the Bekaa.  The court order stipulates a permanent removal of the son and his wife from the house. The court order also stipulates a temporary removal of the husband until he furnishes proof of having attended rehabilitation session.  The husband is also obligated to pay his wife’s rent and a monthly family allowance of LBP 400,000.

Source: Al-Akhbar 20 September 2014

The Minister of Public Health, Wael Abou Faour, launched last Friday the Maternal and Child Health (MCH) project in the Rashayya public hospital in collaboration with the WHO, Al Makassed Islamic Charitable Association, UNHCR and the EU.  During the launch ceremony, Reem Rabbah, the president of the Heath and Social department in Al Makassed, noted that the project will seek to improve the health conditions of mothers and provide healthy development for children up till the age of two.  To be noted also that the project is also being implemented in Beirut public hospital and thought the health care centres affiliated to both the Beirut and Rashayya public hospitals. For his part, the Minister of Public Health, Wael Abou-Faour noted that the key justification of this project is that remote rural areas do not enjoy proper health care services especially in terms of MCH services.  The Minister also pointed out to the high maternal mortality rate prevailing in these same areas.
Source: Al-Akhbar 20 September 2014

UNWomen launched last Friday an international campaign entitled “He for She”.  The campaign will seek to involve 100,000 men in the fight against gender inequality and in an effort to challenge discrimination, strengthen women’s role and monitor advances made in countries at the level of fostering gender equality.  The UNWomen under-secretary general, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, noted that the objective of UNWomen is to increase the participation of men and boys in efforts seeking to realize gender equality.  She added that women cannot do this alone and that it is important to include all segments of society in women’s issues.  She called on fathers, sons, husbands and brothers across the world to support women’s equality in all aspects of life.  She also confirmed the projections that by the year 2020, 140000 girls will be forced to marry while underscoring that gender equality will need 95 years to be realized if the present situation does not change.
Source: Al-Safir 22 September 2014
 

Al Akhbar newspaper published an article about the research carried out by journalist and author Sahar Mandur and entitled “Potential Change in Media Discourse on Sexuality in Lebanon”.  The research focused on how the media addressed the Cinema Plaza story in 2012 during which 36 young men were arrested and subjected to anal exams, after a TV programme on MTV station raided the cinema and asked the authorities to interfere. Mandur presented her study during a seminar entitled “Chats on gender”, organised last week by Arab Foundation for Freedom and Equality, in Beirut.
According to Mandur, the audio-visual media witnessed a breakthrough in approaching the subject and in covering the story, particularly when LBCI station opened its news broadcast with a highly social critical editorial written by Khaled Saghieh and entitled "welcome to the republic of shame".  To be noted that such issues had been traditionally dealt with by the media in an anecdotal and burlesque manner. Mandur added that several factors contributed to change at the level of the written and audio visual media namely the emergence of a right based civil movement strengthened by public contributions and interaction on As Safir youth page, the creation of Al Akhbar newspaper which brought a space and a voice for young activists.  These two landmarks were subsequently followed by the establishment of a number of partnerships between civil society organisations and some newspapers such as for instance the collaboration between the Legal Agenda and As Safir.
Mandur concluded by expressing her pessimism regarding individual freedoms in the media. She added that there is a marked difference between the audio visual media, which continues to treat these issues in a sensationalist way, and the written media which is more committed to issues related to rights and freedoms.

Source: Al-Akhbar 19 September

The Ministry of Interior and Municipalities announced yesterday the closure of submissions for candidacy to the planned parliamentary elections.  Out of a total of 514 people who submitted their candidacy, some 43 were women (i.e. 6.8% of total).  To be noted that the number of candidates who submitted their files during the opening last year was 706 candidates of whom 43 were women (i.e. 6.2%) thus clearly indicating a very low percentage.

Source: Al-Mustaqbal, Al-Safir 17 September 2014

For the full list of the women candidates, please click the following link: Names of women candidates for the 2014 Parliamentary elections

Kafa Violence and Exploitation launched yesterday its new campaign on sex work in Lebanon.  Kafa highlights that sex work is a form of violence and exploitation of women and a reflection of patriarchy and a blatant abuse of women’s rights and entitlement to personal safety and equality. The event kicked off with the presentation of a documentary entitled “the oldest form of violence” which highlights the social and economic vulnerability of girls and their exploitation by their pimps.  The documentary also looked at the demand side and interviewed buyers of sexual services.  The event then moved to the coordinator of the anti-exploitation and trafficking project in Kafa, Ghada Jabbur, who presented the findings of the study, entitled “Exploring the demand for prostitution; what male buyers say about their motives, practices and perceptions.”  The study sought to understand the behavior of sex clients in Lebanon and concluded that clients purchase sexual services to meet their desires and their expressions of masculinity which, in turns, highlights the uneven relation of power between clients and sex workers.
Lawyer Nizar Saghieh commented on the documentary and said that public authorities do not perform their role which should consist in combating such forms of exploitation and violence against women while the current law penalizes both sex workers and pimps.  He also added that although progress was made after ratifying the convention on trafficking in people, however the law has left the burden of proof on women to demonstrate that they have been exploited and trafficked.

Source: Al-Safir, Al-Akhbar 16 September 2014