To mark the U.N.-designated International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women Sunday, organizations are holding events across Lebanon as part of a 16-day campaign to raise awareness on gender-based violence. From Nov. 25 to Dec. 10, the U.N. and the National Commission for Lebanese Women will run ads across media with the hashtag #Bakirr3laya (“It’s too early for her”), the U.N. said.
“The continued acceptance of child marriage and the fact that the law does not enforce a minimum age for marriage is further evidence to the failure of the legislation to keep up with changes in the status of women and the roles they play in society,” NCLW president Claudine Aoun Roukoz was quoted as saying.
Caroline Succar, vice president of the Lebanese Democratic Women’s Gathering (RDFL), told The Daily Star her organization will be holding events in Beirut, Jounieh, Zahle and Baalbeck as part of this campaign.
Succar said RDFL has also partnered with Parliament’s General Secretariat, UNICEF and a number of MPs to hold a conference on Dec. 4 discussing the 16-day campaign as well as laws related to violence against women.
RDFL has called for an amendment to Law 293, which protects women from family violence, in order to broaden its scope to include all violence against women.
“The campaign was launched a few days before the [Nov. 12] legislative session in order to put pressure on the government, since the law was one of the subjects being discussed during the legislative session. A lot of the MPs supported the amendment to the law but others were against it,” Succar said.
NCLW members and MPs Paula Yacoubian, Ibrahim Kanaan, Eddy Abillama, Estephan Dweihy, Teymour Joumblatt, Sami Gemayel, Chamel Roukoz and Michel Musa will attend a meeting Monday to submit the proposed amendment for Cabinet’s consideration.
Earlier this month, RDFL ran a campaign called “Young 3arous,” which aimed to raise awareness on child marriage by claiming to be a matching service for men who want to marry girls below the age of 18.
Succar said the campaign’s goal was to shock and observe people’s responses. “We received many phone calls from men who want to get married to girls below the age of 18.”
There are few statistics in Lebanon tracking the prevalence of violence against women and child marriage. According to the U.N., there are an estimated 650 million women worldwide who were married as children, and unless action is taken against the practice, an additional 150 million girls are likely to marry by 2030.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
