Teacher Gets Only 20 Days in Jail for Sexually Assaulting Teenage Students

Last December, several female high school students worked together with civil organizations to expose their teacher's sexual assault, providing multiple testimonies that led to his arrest five months ago.

Samer Mawlawi, the teacher and journalist who is related to Lebanon's Minister of Interior and Municipalities Bassam Mawlawi, has just been sentenced to 20 days in jail and has already been released from custody last January.

Translation: "What message does the judicial system send us by sentencing Samer Mawlawi for 20 days only? 1- It's telling us that sexual harassment laws are useless. 2- It tells every victim of sexual assault that they shouldn't report it in a patriarchal system. What do we tell them in return? We'll continue to report and expose every incident till we get our rights."

The Tripoli-based teacher featured headlines in December 2021, when many of his female students collected screenshots of text messages with sexual content he used to send them, before warning them that reporting it would affect their grades.

Yet, the collective work of students at the George Sarraf High School supported by online communities that promised to protect them after exposing Samer Mawlawi led to a nationwide scandal that pressured authorities to arrest him.

In response to news of the legal decision, online people expressed strong outrage, saying that the extremely short-jail sentence, if anything, sends a message of dismissing young students' need for safety, and prioritizes criminals based on their links to people in power.

Translation: "What are 20 days in jail supposed to mean? How is this a court decision? Isn't there a minimum and a maximum range of punishment? If my kids were in this school and were assaulted, what would you like me to do? Think this jail time is fair and enough? What justice are we talking about?"

Moreover, some online users condemned the decision saying it encourages sexual harassment and assault in the country and implicitly tells women to stop reporting abuse suffered at the hands of men in the society. 

Some commentators also highlighted their growing concerns over sending their kids to schools in Lebanon, as long as the law can not protect them from Samer Mawlawi and similar criminals.

A report by the Lebanon-based Sharika wa Laken website cited a legal expert who said the sentence is a clear violation of laws, as Samer Mawlawi's sexual assault is a felony per Lebanese laws, one that carries out a punishment of jail time between 2 and 4 years in addition to a fine decided by the court.