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Rajana Diet wrote in “Al-Akhbar”:
“Salwa” lived four years, the captive of a man she did not know. This period was supposed to be the beginning of a new life, but what linked her to this stranger made those years hell. Every day, this young woman waited for a fate linked to a “scandal” for a photo that she voluntarily sent her.
At the age of seventeen, “Salwa” met “Nada” on Facebook. He was an acquaintance by chance, or so the young victim imagined. At first, the conversations between them were normal, and after the relationship between the two parties grew stronger, “Salwa” turned to “Nada” for “Al-Fadda” until he told her the details of his life. She does not know how that satisfactory relationship became impossible, since “Nothing” became everything for her, even hypothetically … until Nada confessed to her friend that he was a man who declared his love. “Salwa” forgave the alleged “girlfriend”, and the relationship continued, after which the “decoy” journey began by requesting a photo of her without a hijab, until she finally reached a semi-nude photo, where the girl remained captive for more. two years, during which she was forced to do everything that was asked of her under Pressing to post her photo on social media or send it to her family.
“Four years of hell”. There was no more accurate expression than this to describe the years during which there were three unsuccessful suicide attempts, after her life was suspended by an image, a scandal that made her comply with all that the stalker asked of her with total submission.
Salwa’s story is not exceptional. Many girls have been victims of sexual harassment by people who have invested in social networking sites for that purpose, and have remained silent … fearing scandal. However, there are stories – on the other hand – with which the victims have remained silent and have filed complaints in court against the stalkers. However, they do not give the actual number of cases of sexual harassment. Here you can count on the figures periodically distributed by the Public Relations Division of the General Directorate of Internal Security Forces, the last of which is the “toll” of casualties for the months of July and August. During sixty days, 143 complaints of sexual harassment were registered (47 complaints in July and 96 in August). These are only complaints received through “social networks of the General Directorate and through the complaints service on the web.” Management estimated the increase compared to the same period last year at 104.25%. By simple arithmetic, this means that every day, an average of two and a half complaints are registered, while the number of detainees since the beginning of the year does not exceed 133, and they are often given a financial bond and a promise not to repeat themselves .
These figures are increasing day by day. Between the end of this year and today, the figures “evolved” from 43 complaints received by the Directorate from December 20 to last February, to 122 complaints from February 21 to April 21 to 143 today. Directory sources attribute this increase to the shutdown that accompanied the spread of the Corona virus in the country, which opened the door to social media for many.
Management sources indicate that “the proportion of female victims is estimated at 60% and sometimes reaches 80%”, and that the complaints “are not exclusive to girls and single women, as it is striking that there are complaints from women married and even old women. ” As for the scene of those events, social networking sites from “Facebook” to “Twitter” and “TikTok”, which finally joined the list. The common denominator among most complaints is “sexual blackmail through a pornographic image, a cool video, or the installation of a girl’s image on a pornographic body.”
This is the image that numbers convey. Outside of the numbers, victims of sexual blackmail are “much more than that,” says Nai Al-Raei, one of the founders of “Harassment Tracker.” Shepherd confirms that what is actually happening is “unbelievable”, and what the figures give is “less than a quarter of a quarter of the cases that occur.” This is confirmed by the latest figures issued by the World Health Organization, which indicate that one in three women has suffered sexual harassment at least once in her life. This is confirmed by the lawyer of the organization “Stop Violence and Exploitation”, Leila Awada, noting that the complaint “while speaking” is the bulk of what the victim does. As for the criminal complaint, “it is difficult to find someone who decides to confront this way.” And what the victim complains of, according to the godfather, there are many types of harassment that begin with a word, gesture or movement and go “to track the victim or harass her in public transport or taxis or masturbate in front of the girl or install photographs of her and threaten to expose her ”.
Despite all this, there is still no clear legal definition of sexual harassment. Consequently, there is legal confusion when dealing with these cases. Despite the fact that harassment is considered a crime according to international conventions, in Lebanese law it has not reached that level, and its cases remain “fleeting”, with which the harasser arrives on bail. Despite the numbers that are recorded daily and the complaints made by victims of harassment, “not a single sentence was issued condemning one person for having sexually harassed another,” says Awada. Regarding the arrest of a person for this charge, “this crime is usually included in other areas such as blackmail, threats, contempt and insult, and articles of the law are sought to judge based on its basis.” Therefore, “this complaint is not included in the category of sexual harassment because it is not observed in the laws”, which makes the sentences -if issued- are less than the magnitude of the crime that occurred and that carries psychological and that can lead to the suicide of the victim. This is not because the crime is complicated, but because there is a “lack of laws,” says Awada.
So far, despite the large number of sexual offenses, the bill on sexual harassment remains held hostage by parliamentary committees, and is the summary of several bills, including a bill presented by the former Minister of Women’s Affairs. , Jean Ogasebian, and a bill proposed by former representative Ghassan Moukheiber, and a third one presented by the Association. Civil and fourth presented by the head of the Maternal-Infant Parliamentary Commission Inaya Ezz El-Din.
Despite this, these bills do not augur any change, especially since the legislator’s mentality remains the same. The Mukhaibar project (2017), for example, was “reliable”, then in the same session it was removed from it. The reason? Until now, “you always have to think about how we will prove the crime.” This is a question that is open to many possibilities that may take longer to arrive at the confirmation of the crime and may not arrive, and the evidence of many laws “accepted” in the committees. In this context, Mukhaibar retells the details of the parliamentary session in which the bill was proposed, noting that in one of the council sessions the proposal was presented on the basis of haste, but “in the first periods of discussion, I found that the atmosphere in parliament was sarcasm, and the conversation was mostly, for some, what they want is the laws they respond to. However, after that the discussion took another course with the support of the interventions of several deputies to this proposal, and the law was almost “cracked.” However, then Minister Ogaspian was keen to participate in the legal debate given the efforts he had made to draft a bill on sexual harassment. Later, Mukhaiber and Ogaspian were asked to do a retreat to merge the two projects and “Take Back”.
This is what Nabih Berri, Speaker of Parliament, said at the time. However, the return was not the same as “the spirit”, since the merger project could not cross to become law in force. Moukheiber takes advantage of those moments to miss the opportunity for the victims. At that time, the law could have been obtained, since grasping the laws is tied to their moments. Mukhaibar affirms that “the laws are taken” according to the priorities of each moment. However, given that priorities “may change”, the fear that a law of this importance will not be “interrupted” today in the circumstances that the country is going through. Today, such a law requires effort and pressure to make the conversation about crime a reality, especially since there is no crime called sexual harassment and therefore there is no crime, and any conversation about harassment is outside the law. When there is a complaint of sexual harassment, provisions that fall within the category of outrage of public decency are used.
For all these reasons, and due to the “misogynist system”, according to Al-Raei, most complaints do not reach the courts. Due to the absence of a clear law, the victim is reluctant to file a complaint, especially since no one guarantees the result, in addition to their fear of scandal. Hence, recently the phenomenon of resorting to reporting bullies has spread, especially in light of the victim’s need for social solidarity. However, this step is negative, related to the fact that the harasser becomes the victim “and the law protects him because he is the object of defamation”!
The main objection to the two bills presented by Ghassan Moukheiber and Jean Ogasebian is the “place” in which the definition of sexual harassment was included. As in the Moukheiber bill, sexual harassment policies were included at the criminal code level (article 521), while the Ogaspian project proposes to include them both in the criminal code and in labor legislation. The inclusion of these definitions at the core of the Penal Code means that legislators have not yet departed from their neutrality, which continues to address the issue of sexual harassment in “moral” terms, as the act is seen as an affront to ” honor and dignity “, not as a case in which there are two parties: the victim and the stalker. There is no parity between them that “requires different litigation mechanisms,” says researcher Mona Khneisser of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in her criticism of the two bills. In addition, Khneisser considered that the inclusion of sexual harassment policies under the title of public morals and morals of the Penal Code only reflects the deficiency in the understanding of harassment by legislators, since this approach in itself seeks to “separate harassment sexual violence against women of its systematic nature, placing it within the framework of individual harm. (…) that prevents the idea of compensation and diverts it towards public morals and morals that may be subject to different and altered social interpretations. Furthermore, the two proposals did not contain specific provisions to address mobbing. If Moukheiber touched on this, however, she restricted the matter to racial harassment only, which closes the door on many aspects of mobbing that would affect the victim in different places. As for the most important of all, it is that the two proposals did not release the burden of proving the fact, especially because they had to prove the “consequences of harassment”, citing terms such as “that violates their dignity.” This means that the crime does not occur unless its outcome is proven, which is impossible to prove in most cases.
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