The patriarchal society in Lebanon impedes progress on women’s rights

The Lebanese Cultural Space, Ninar, organized a meeting on February 7 entitled: ‘Women in Lebanon: Reality and Rights’ which was moderated by a lawyer and a journalist. Nisreen Salhab, a lawyer in entrepreneurship law, considered that despite all efforts to help establish their rights, women in Lebanon are yet deprived of the social and political entitlements. Salhab lamented the dominion of the patriarchal system which prevents any progress in this direction, drawing attention to the role of the Constitution in substantiating this system. The hitch is precisely in Article Nine of the Constitution which requires compliance with the Personal Status Law formulated to appease the patriarchal mindset that extends authority exclusively to the father, Salhab maintained. Stressing that the personal status laws incite and promote gender inequality, Salhab criticized Lebanon’s reservations to certain stipulations of the Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), namely those related to mothers granting nationality to their family members. Salhab also called attention to the low participation of women in the political life, mainly attributable to two key reasons. The first is the domination of prominent political families that exercise some form of political monopoly or control over relatively independent parties; and the second, is the absence of a women-friendly political culture that inspires and supports women’s participation in public decision making. Salhab underlined the urgency to adopt the women representation quota to this effect. (L’Orient Le Jour, Februay 9, 2017)