Kicking off International Women’s Day in Lebanon

As usual each year, associations involved with women’s issues celebrate the International Women’s Day on March 8 by organizing various events and activities to commemorate that day. The May Chidiac Foundation launched its conference “Women on the Front Lines” in its 5th edition at Phoenicia Hotel, Beirut. Speeches called for the following: implementation of CEDAW convention which Lebanon signed in 1996; amendment and endorsement of the Nationality Law; development of a unified Personal Status Law, and modification of the Penal Code and its discriminatory provisions as per crimes of honor and adultery related rulings. Aside, the Lebanese Forces Apparatus for Activating the Role of Women,  organized a dinner banquet at Habtour Hotel in Sin el Fil, under the theme, ‘the mirror of the nation’. The event honored seven women ambassadors, including three foreign ambassadors, and screened the achievements of the Apparatus during 2016. On the occasion, MP Setrida Geagea disclosed a plan by the LF to nominate a number of women for the Parliament. For its part, ESCWA in Beirut organized a conference under the banner, “ Women’s Empowerment is the Nations’ Empowerment, Be Bold for Change’, where the minister of state for women’s affairs, Jean Ogassapian, pledged to support women’s representation quota as a transitional phase, while insisting that quota should be observed not only in ministries of administrative nature or are involved with women’s issues, but also in so-called sovereignty ministries, such as the defense and finance ministries. Also, the Human Rights Institute at the Beirut Bar Association in collaboration with Friedrich Ebert Foundation, called for a workshop on human rights in Lebanon, where Participants tackled the work, objectives, roles and structures of the ministries of human rights and women’s affairs and the possibility of turning them into permanent state ministries. (Al Diyar, Al Mustaqbal, An Nahar, March 7, 2017)