ABAAD is a non-profit, non-politically affiliated, non-religious civil association that aims to achieve gender equality as an essential condition to sustainable social and economic development in the MENA region. ABAAD seeks to promote women's equality and participation through policy development, legal reform, and gender mainstreaming, engaging men, eliminating discrimination, and advancing and empowering women to participate effectively and fully in their communities. ABAAD also seeks to support and collaborate with civil society organizations that are involved in gender equality programs and advocacy campaigns.
ABAAD has been working in addressing GBV since its establishment through policy development, action research, capacity development, primary prevention and engaging men in GBV programming. Understanding women (& men) knowledge and attitude towards legal & civic rights in relation to GBV is an essential component in strategizing to end GBV and guaranteeing proper and active participation of women in public sphere and women’s movement .
Background
Gender based violence against women still exist in both public and domestic spheres in Lebanon, although most occurrences go unreported. The Lebanese law pertaining to crimes of rape kidnapping, among others, are seen as “detrimental to women and expose them to domestic, sexual and psychological violence(1)” Arguments have been made that there is a correlation between discriminatory Personal Status laws and violence against women. Laurie Brand argues that in fact the law legitimates such violence. She states, “It authorizes the husband to kill his wife in the case of adultery; it permits him to prevent his wife from traveling, and gives him the right to marry his daughter to someone against her will. The moral violence embedded in the personal status codes ends up legitimating physical violence against women.
Over the years, embedded traditions, perceived values, social prejudices, political interests and cultural barriers have all contributed to injustice and inequity between men and women in Lebanon, amplified by weak State accountability systems and poor efforts towards women empowerment.
As a result, women, in Lebanon, continue to suffer from various forms of socio-legal & political exploitations and lack knowledge on socio-legal protection mechanisms or forms of legal discrimination in Lebanese legislations.
A closer look at the governmental efforts shows that there are no specific and structured programmes related to GBV implemented within the context of official policy and/or strategy of the Government, or by the directly concerned sectors; however, some ministries have made a few interventions. For example, the Ministry of Labour that focuses its work mainly on gender equality in the workplace, though there is no documented work or institutional structure for GBV included with regard to sexual harassment; and the Ministry of Social Affairs through initiating the national technical taskforce on ending GBV in Lebanon, co-chaired by ABAAD.
However, the ongoing work and advocacy of civil society organizations witnessed remarkable progress by focusing mostly on highlighting GBV issues, as well as lobbying for policy and procedural changes. In this respect, and in response to the global recognition of the seriousness of GBV, and taking into account the context of Lebanon, the interest and need for GBV programmes and services continue to grow and are far from being met.
As a result, studies have highlighted the limits in building a knowledge base about effective ways to reduce levels of intimate partner, sexual and gender based violence. In general, gender-based violence prevention has received far less attention than treatment for survivors. Empirical evidence about effective interventions is scarce.
Status of women in Lebanon in a nutshell
Lebanese women have had full suffrage and the ability to run for office since the constitutional changes in 1957 but their actual participation in political life and national decision-making has remained extremely low. Hence, Lebanese women won the right to vote and to participate in national elections 19 years before women in Switzerland. Yet, today, political participation by Lebanese women remains dismal at the national level. Since the end of the 1975-1990 Civil War, there was an improvement in women representation in the government, despite the fact that progress has been slow. In the June 2009 parliamentary elections, only 12 women ran for elections and only 4 were elected out of 128 seats.
Women under-representation leaves women exposed to conflict, as illustrated by the 2006 summer war in Lebanon, where women constituted two-thirds of victims, who suffered from water and medical shortages and trauma-related difficulties.
The survey on Status of Women in MENA region (SWMENA) assessed civic and political participation of women in men while analyzing their civic engagement through membership in different types of organizations and taking part in different activities to express opinions on political and social issues.
The data from the survey indicated that 74% of women are not members of any organization. Data showed that men are generally more likely to be members of different types of organizations than women: there are three times as many men than women members of political parties (21% of men vs. 7% of women).
This is also the case for membership in trade unions and professional syndicates: 7% of men are members vs. 3% of women. Women are however more active than men in certain organizations such as religious groups, charity organizations and women’s organizations: indeed more women are likely to be members of these organizations than men. This was assured by another study which showed that women themselves comprise a key source of volunteer labour in the development and social service civil sector. Out of a sample of 130 NGOs 35,000 of the 71, 000 working in this sector, are women engaged in unpaid, volunteer labour.
What are the reasons behind women’s poor representation in the public sphere? How do women (and men) perceive women’s social/political gendered role? What are women’s attitudes towards civic engagement? What are the underlying reasons behind women’s participation or non-participation in the public sphere?
Job purpose
Conduct an assessment of the perception, knowledge and attitude of women and men towards women’s legal & civic rights in relation to GBV and their participation in the public sphere and women’s movement and provide practical recommendations for effective interventions.
Specific Objectives
Based on the above, ABAAD in partnership with World Vision Lebanon will conduct a study to:
Assess women and men’ perception, knowledge and attitude towards women’s legal & civil rights especially in relation to GBV.
Assess women and men’s level of participation in the public sphere specifically with women’s movements in Lebanon
