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On Monday, Lebanese MPs agreed to pass a law criminalizing sexual harassment, especially in the workplace, for the first time in the country’s history. Parliament also passed fundamental amendments to the law on domestic violence. The United Nations welcomed the passage of the harassment law, but human rights observers noted many flaws in it.
On Monday, the Lebanese parliament approved a bill providing for the punishment. sexual harassment Especially in the workplace, it is the first time of its kind. LebanonIn addition, it approved fundamental reforms to the law on domestic violence.
The United Nations welcomed the passage of the harassment law, but human rights observers noted many flaws in it.
During a session that lasted about three hours, and on its agenda dozens of proposed laws, the Chamber of Deputies approved, according to the National News Agency, “the bill intended to punish the crime of sexual harassment, especially in the labor sphere”.
The United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Jan Kubi, welcomed the passage of the law, as “a step towards empowerment Women rights And human rights. “
“The application is the key,” he added in a tweet.
However, the Legal Agenda, a non-governmental organization specialized in legal matters and concerned with the explanation and interpretation of the laws, saw that the law contains several problems, the main of which is that it addresses the subject from a “point of view moral designed to protect society and not the victim. “
Karim Nammour, from the Legal Notebook, explained several other problems, among them that “the only way for the victim is to resort to the criminal judiciary … which means that the matter will be opened when the victim goes through a police station, a judge investigators, then judges, and this is a great obstacle for the victims and not an incentive for them to file complaints. “
He also indicated that the law requires the victim to “prove the act of harassment and its consequences, and this is a burden in itself”, while the harasser had to prove that he did not.
According to the law, the penalty ranges from one month to two years in prison or a fine ranging from twenty-three minimum wages, which is equivalent to 675,000 pounds, or 450 dollars according to the official exchange rate and less than one hundred dollars according to the black market.
The National Commission of Lebanese Women, in turn, welcomed the approval of the law, “for Lebanon to have for the first time a law that punishes the perpetrators of this crime and provides protection and support to its victims.”
The rise of the feminist movement in Lebanon over the past decade coincided with increased media coverage of domestic violence problems and the murders of women at the hands of their husbands.
In April 2014, the Domestic Violence Law was passed, the first in Lebanon in this regard, but human rights groups considered that it did not address basic issues such as marital rape and economic and psychological violence.
Lawyer Leila Awada, from the non-governmental organization “Stop Violence and Exploitation”, which defends the rights of women, explained that Parliament made several basic amendments to the law, including the “imposition of a penalty for committing economic and psychological violence “but he turned a blind eye to many other problems between them. Marital rape “.
Aya Majzoub of Human Rights Watch saw the passage of the Harassment Punishment Law and the amendments to the Domestic Violence Law as a “positive step, even if it was late and insufficient.”
“Marrying the victim should not exempt the sex offender from punishment,” he added.
France 24 / AFP
