One year imprisonment for public harassment of Tunisian women while young sexual offenders in Lebanon are released!

In an important move, the Tunisian Parliament ratified a draft law entailing a set of deterrent penalties for gender-based street harassment of women. The new legislation provides for a one-year imprisonment of anyone who, by action, comment or gesture, harasses a woman in a public place in such that offends her dignity. The said law also fines with 2000 Tunisian Dinars (USD 905) the party who deliberately discriminates in remuneration of equal work of equal value on the basis of gender. The law further proposes aggravated penalties sustained in the Disciplinary Magazine in the case that the perpetrator had authority on the woman victim, while upgrading to 6 years of imprisonment of anyone who had consensual sexual intercourse with a girl under 16 years of age. In Lebanon, and, after the release order by the acting investigative judge in the North of the three underage rapists of a girl minor (http://bit.ly/2aFEYGu) ,we are still far from realizing justice and punishing abusers and harassers, notwithstanding all cases of sexual highlighted in the Midnight March campaign on Women’s Day ( http://bit.ly/2aO8dS1), and the frequent harassment of girls reported in Tripoli (http://bit.ly/2b7vimt). However, reactions have been limited to creating a website named  Harass Tracker "http://harasstracker.org، launched by a group of feminist and social activists, that contain a map that tracks incidents of harassment in an attempt to raise awareness on this despicable act. (Al Hayat, August 8, 2016)