The First Investigative Judge in Beirut, Ghassan Oweidat, issued an indictment yesterday in the murder last January 22, of Nada Bahlawan by her ex-husband in the Beirut neighborhood of Ras el Nabeh (https://bit.ly/2rF12sz). Oweidat’s ruling called for the death penalty for the culprit based on Article 549 of the Penal Code of premeditated murder and on Article 73 of the Weapons Act of the transfer of an unauthorized hunting gun. On the other hand, the Directorate General of the Internal Security Forces statistics has shown that nearly 13 women report sexual abuse every month in Lebanon (3 incidents per week), in addition to reportedly 229 sexual assault incidents which took place between January 2016 and August 2017. According to human rights experts on sexual assaults and trafficking in women, figures have revealed that the rate of reports by women of similar incidents has risen in the past few years. This, they argued, is mainly due to an increase in community awareness to such cases and how to deal with them, as well as, to the culture of silence and blaming or pressuring women victims to stay silent, on the one hand, or to the improved legal frameworks that protect women against trafficking and violence. (Al Akhbar, Al Mustaqbal, April 26, 2018)