Lebanese Campaign Urges Abolishment of Law that Protects Rapists Who Marry Victims

Turkey just backed down from adopting such a law as this, but it has been in place in Lebanon for some time. 

   A campaign poster by Abaad highlighting the negative effects Article 522 has on Lebanese women.
   Published: 13:35 December 2, 2016 Gulf News

Joseph A. Kechichian, Senior Writer

Beirut: Article 522 of the Lebanese Penal Code shields rapists from prosecution on the condition that they marry their victim, a phenomenon that is still practised in the country, especially among conservative families whose chief aim is to preserve the family’s so-called “honour.”

Activists say that such ‘protection’ is, more often than not, a second trauma for victims — something that parliament’s Administration and Justice Committee met to discuss a few days ago.

Deputy Élie Keyrouz, a Lebanese Forces MP, proposed to abolish the article entirely, but parliament moved to postpone the debate on the proposal until next Wednesday.

The Lebanese Forces’ Department of Women’s Affairs not only called to abolish the article but also to prosecute the rapists — insisting that 522 stands as an insult to “women and violates their dignity and the safety of the family and stability.”

The hashtag #Undress522 has also been launched to trigger online discussion and awareness on the matter.

It teamed up with local NGO, ABAAD, which made visual inroads as it displayed in front of parliament building at Nijmeh Square a woman dressed in a white wedding dress made with bandages, to say that this was not acceptable.

The idea for the visual was taken from a powerful video made by Danielle Rizkallah that shows how a woman is beaten and raped before her bruises are covered with bandages that resemble a white dress.

Model Galina Yordanova played the role and stood outside parliament to sensitise lawmakers to the plight under the slogan “A White Dress Doesn’t Cover the Rape”.

ABAAD recently issued a comprehensive 271-page study in Arabic by Azza Charara Baydoun, “Domestic Violence” which dotted the i’s and crossed every imaginable t in the ultraconservative Lebanese society that skirts with liberalism in public, but insists on ancient norms in private.

The heavily researched and annotated book confirms that 4 per cent of Lebanese women are subjected to verbal abuses, 8 per cent to physical assaults, 13 per cent to financial constraints, 17 per cent to rape, and a whopping 41 per cent are routinely subjected to legal violence since the current law protects the man instead of his victim.

According to an ABAAD commissioned survey, “60 per cent of the Lebanese population is in favour of repealing Article 522 with 84 per cent considering that it protects the rapist from prosecution and punishment.”

Another 73 per cent consider that the Article increases pressure on women to marry their rapists with the same number considering that the Article reflects society’s preference for preserving a family’s ‘honour’, rather than seeking justice for a woman’s suffering.

Backward people are in desperate need of re-defining what honour really is.

    Lebanon is about 54% Muslim, 40% Christian, and 5.6% Druze

Ottawa Mountie On Trial for Abusing Son Was Sexually Abused as Child

By Laurie Fagan, CBC News 

An Ottawa Mountie (left) and the victim's stepmother (right) were charged in February 2013 with aggravated assault, forcible confinement and failing to provide the necessaties of life in what investigators called "the worst case of abuse" they'd seen. (Courtroom sketches by Sarah Wallace)

An Ottawa Mountie on trial for the severe abuse of his son testified today that he was himself sexually assaulted as a boy growing up in Lebanon. 

Both the man, now 44, and the victim's stepmother were charged in February 2013 with aggravated assault, forcible confinement and failing to provide the necessaties of life in what investigators called "the worst case of abuse" they'd seen.

The woman is also charged with assaulting the child with a weapon, while the man is charged with sexual assault causing bodily harm and assault with a firearm.

Both have plead not guilty. Neither accused can be named in order to protect the identity of the victim, who was 11 when the charges were laid.

The trial resumed today after being adjourned last fall.

Abused by neighbour, teacher

The man told the court that when he was eight, a boy living next door to him in Beruit assaulted him repeatedly over a one-year period.  

The man claimed he was later assaulted by another man, and again by a trusted teacher at the school where the accused worked with his father. 

"I was ashamed and embarrassed," the Mountie told the court.

The man, who is suspended without pay from the RCMP, recalled exact details of the sexual assaults, but remained composed during his testimony.

He said the abuse happened against a backdrop of civil war in Lebanon, with bombs exploding continually around the home he shared with his parents and five siblings.

"This becomes your reality," the man told the court. "Is the next [bomb] coming down on your head? That's how I lived."

"My life is no longer the same," he said. "I grew up asking why am I being targeted ... I lived with the guilt, shame and anger inside of me for the whole time."

So, you decided to make your son a target and fill him with guilt, shame and anger! Good goin'.

Nightmares continued

The man told the court he experienced nightmares about both the bombings and the sexual assaults for years, even after he came to Canada.

His lawyer, Robert Carew, asked him if the assaults played a role in his relationship with his son, now 14.

In addition to the sexual assaults he said he endured in Lebanon, the man told the court he witnessed another boy about his age performing indecent acts on children in his neighbourhood.

The man likened his own son to the boy he said he witnessed abusing other children. He said his son was "indecent in his touching" of other children, and said the boy had been caught peeking under stalls in a girls' washroom.

Good grief!

Asked by defence counsel asked if he thought his son was exhibiting sexual predatory behavior, the man replied: "Morally, he was dead to me."

The man also testified that while preparing for his entrance exams for the RCMP — a process that included a psychological test — an officer cautioned him against mentioning his ongoing nightmares related to his childhood in Lebanon.

Last fall the court saw a video of the man's son, naked and restrained in the basement of the family home. 

Testimony resumes Tuesday. This portion of the trial is scheduled for two weeks.

Man in 60s Shows Off His 12 Year Old Bride

This man is not the child's grandfather - he is her husband

The girl has not even reached puberty yet

Click on the picture to watch the two minute video

The man is obviously in his 60s and the girl 12. So there is about 50 years difference in age.

This video is melting the internet as it shines the spotlight on 37,000 Muslim child marriages that happen every day.

This is part of a campaign in Lebanon that is meant to bring light to the laws that actually ALLOW child brides.