Last week, a horrific crime shook the Burj Barajneh neighborhood in Beirut’s Southern Suburbs, when Zainab, 14, was found dead in an abandoned apartment in the area, to find out after examination by the forensic that she was set on fire. A security forces report, meanwhile, pointed to three young men who were involved in the brutal murder. The reported motives are many, including one which suggests that Zainab was sexually assaulted by three criminals before being burned alive. Another hinted at an accidental killing of the teenage girl who was present at the apartment at the time of the fire. Other stories involved an argument which developed between Zainab and one of the suspects who beat her and ended with the tragedy when she resorted to another person for protection. Regardless of the motivations behind the crime, Al Akhbar newspaper wrote that the story of Zainab brings to mind many cases where imputing the victim becomes stronger than the act of murder itself. According to lawyer Manar Zeiater, the female victim is always blamed in most cases of homicide where the perpetrator is a male. In this scenario of similar repeated crimes, the equation becomes as follows: the victim who is a woman is generally overlooked and the perpetrator receives all the empathy based on the intentions which drove him to commit his murder, Zeiater explained, adding, in Zainab’s case, the equation becomes the following: the reputation, honor and righteousness. (Al Akhbar, September 24, 2020)