Subscribe to newsletter

Custom Search 1

You are here

Violence against women in Christian religious laws, the role of the state and civil society organizations in ensuring protection

12-2-2014

Within the context of heightened debate on the law to protect women from family violence and with the increased reporting of family violence and abuse against women and children, An Nahar newspaper published an interview with lawyer and legal scholar Ibrahim Trabulsi who gave an overview of the texts in the Christian jurisdiction which address violence and mistreatment and which protect tormented “spouses” and kids abused by their parents.  Current religious text address these through providing the possibility of separation as well as requesting divorce or annulment.
Trabulsi noted that Christian religious courts seek to protect the “family” through legal texts that do not recognize all possible cases of abuse whilst there is no social policy to protect family members from mistreatment at all levels.  He added that court decisions are often impossible to implement because of various procedural challenges.  Traboulsi also spoke of the absence of any form of civil protection since all matters related to the family are within the remit of religious laws.  He also reiterated that there is no reference or official recourse to go to in case a family member is subjected to mistreatment or abuse aside from civil society initiatives.  He added that the state should enact a comprehensive law to protect the family as well as mobilize social workers to investigate cases in addition to creating a specialized unit within the Ministry of Social Affairs as well as a social public prosecution to investigate crimes within families.
Trabulsi concluded that the proposed domestic violence protection bill, and which ought to be endorsed by parliament, should not be viewed as a battle between civil society and religious institutions as, according to Trabulsi, the proposed law does not intend to take away the responsibility of religious courts in matters related to the family.  He also added that the protection of Lebanese families is primarily the responsibility of civil institutions and not religious institutions notwithstanding the religious family laws which regulate family matters.

For details regarding the text of Christian religious laws, refer to this link.(Arabic content)
Source: Al-Nahar 12 February 2014

Share on

More

Events

No upcoming events

Job vacancies

Sunday, May 15, 2016
Justice Without Frontiers
Friday, October 9, 2015
Collective for Research and Training on Development - Action (CRTD.A)
Monday, August 31, 2015
KAFA (enough) Violence & Exploitation

Most read news