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Lebanon among the worst countries in terms of women's rights
17-6-2019
The director of the Arab Institute for Women (LAU), Dr. Lina Abi Rafeh, told L’Orient Le Jour on the sidelines of the Women Deliver 2019 Conference in Canada (https://bit.ly/2Kn1KTQ), that Lebanon is among the worst 10 countries worldwide in women’s rights. She regretted the absence of political commitment to promote women in Lebanon and the Arab world. Abi Rafeh maintained that the Lebanese woman is incapable of taking any decision inside the household due to the prevalent patriarchal rules controlling everything, including personal status. She strongly criticized the phenomenon of child marriage and the deprivation of the right of Lebanese women married to non-Lebanese to grant citizenship to their family members. She also condemned tabooing any talk about reproductive and sexual health, as well as abortion. The political participation of women in the country is small, she said, pointing to the presence of 6 female MPs and 4 cabinet ministers, which is inadequate, as she said. Abi Rafeh pointed out that the Lebanese women do not have any rights, and not forgetting to mention inequality in rights between men and women in the country, she deplored the discrete discrimination between women based on their sectarian affiliations. Furthermore, she voiced fear about the future of women’s rights in Lebanon, stating that the solution lies in the empowerment of women on a personal level, especially given the absence of clear notions on women’s rights and the lack of parity in the school curricula to this effect. Abi Rafeh concluded by saying, that improving the conditions and status of women in Lebanon cannot rely on individual initiatives, stating that when laws are rigid, change must come from the grassroots. (L’Orient Le Jour, June 17, 2019)
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- العربية
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