Six out of ten women who are subjected to sexual assaults in Lebanon refrain from reporting them for reasons of “honor,” according to a local organization, which demanded, during a demonstration in front of Parliament, to tighten penalties for crimes of sexual violence.
The “Abaad” organization called for the demonstration as part of a campaign entitled “No Show, No Shame” on the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on November 25.
Ghida Anani of the organization, which annually launches campaigns against violence against WomanUnfortunately, sexual assault crimes in Lebanon are still linked to the issue of honor, honor and shame.
In a statement, she stressed the need to look at these crimes “outside the stereotyped societal context and deal with them firmly.”
Dozens of women, including survivors of sexual assaults, demonstrated in front of Parliament in downtown Beirut, calling for “tougher penalties for crimes of sexual violence.”
The campaign’s organizers wrote slogans in red on clothes and white cloths that they hung near the parliament, among them “I want a law that takes my rights and punishes the rapist” and “Justice for the survivors.”
Abaad reported, according to a study it conducted, that six out of ten women who are subjected to sexual assaults do not report it “because of honor and honor.”
The study also reported that more than 70 percent of the women surveyed considered that society considers assaulting women an assault on “the family’s honor first.”
In 2017, human rights organizations achieved a victory by abolishing a controversial legal provision in the Lebanese Parliament that exempts a rapist from punishment if he marries his victim, after a civil campaign.
Human rights organizations are still calling for the abolition of two other articles, one of which stipulates that “whoever has intercourse with a minor under the age of fifteen shall be punished with temporary hard labor,” and the other is punishable by a short term of imprisonment or a fine for “seducing a girl with the promise of marriage and deflowering her.”
The American-Lebanese model, Nour Arida, participated in the vigil, and raised a banner calling on members of the Lebanese Parliament to hold the perpetrators accountable.
And under the hashtag “No Show or Shame,” the Lebanese actress, Carmen Lebbos, commented in a tweet she posted on her official Twitter page with the following words: “5 out of 10 women in Lebanon who have been subjected to sexual assault did not report this assault because their families refused because of the show and honor. From A national statistical study carried out by Abaad Organization during the year 2022 on sexual violence in Lebanon and its reporting.
In turn, the Lebanese journalist Ghadi Francis published a picture indicating that 55 percent of women who were subjected to sexual assault in Lebanon did not report what happened to them.