News

Lebanese engineer, Nadine Adra, received yesterday the French Knight of the Legion of Honor in recognition of her achievements in the field of renewable energy over the past 20 years. Adra, from Tripoli, North Lebanon, is presently the director general of a company affiliated with Total France and specialized in energy building and the environment. She studied at the Greek Orthodox National Girls School and earned her degree in civil engineering from the Lebanese University in 1996. She received a full scholarship to complete her master’s in Lyon and earned a certificate in corporate management from ESSEC and EMLYON. Recalling that Adra, who holds a PhD in sustainable energy, was granted the French citizenship in recognition of developing studies in energy, green buildings and the environment. It should be noted, that Adra has in 2009 won the EU Sustainable Energy Award and in 2014 the title of the Femmes de L’economie. She served as an expert in the European Commission and the International Energy Agency in the period between 2005 and 2014, and since 2015, she is a consultant for the French Foreign Trade. (Lebanon 24, December 6, 2019) 
 

The Women’s Sector- Al Azm Movement officer, Jinan Mbayed, stressed the importance of cooperation between various feminist organizations to endorse human rights and the status of Arab women in particular. Mbayed was speaking during her participation in the Women Leaders’ Summit in Istanbul organized by Raedat Network on November 28. The Arab world as a whole, specially Lebanon, is currently experiencing an uprising by the people demanding social justice and a decent living, Mbayed said. Arab and Lebanese women are called on to actively engage in shaping, rather than being a sideline observer, of developments and events, she added. This entails participation in drawing strategies and future visions, and also figuring out and formulating substitutes to the status quo which arise from both the needs and capacities of society. (NNA, December 3, 2019)
 

Hundreds of angry Indians took to the streets of New Delhi, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Calcutta yesterday in protest against the gang rape and burning to death of a 27-year old female veterinary doctor. Protestors demanded quick and strict punishment of the perpetrators, including public execution, in a step to deter femicide and speed up trials in rape cases. In the details, a women vet disappeared on Wednesday and police discovered her charred body on Saturday arresting four men in their twenties and accusing them of collectively raping her and setting her body on fire in the city of Hyderabad south of India. Police said the suspects deflated the victim’s scooter tires when she was not there and then offered to help take her back where they dragged her to a park near the motorway on the pretext of fixing the tires. Commenting on the murder, a former lawmaker called for the public execution of the criminals, while other parliamentarians attributed the growing sexual violence to tardy court decisions. Recalling, that according to government figures, more than 33,000 rape cases have been recorded in the country during 2017, involving 10,000 minors. The courts looked into over 18,000  cases, while some 128,000 cases remain pending at the end of the year.  (An Nahar, December 3, 2019)
 

The Executive Secretary of ESCWA, Rula Dashti, said full participation of women in the economy, on equal par with men, could increase by USD 1.5 trillion the Arab GDP by 2025. Dashti explained that violence against women incurs huge direct and indirect losses estimated at USD 245 billion on the Arab economy every year. Dashti was speaking at a meeting held in Amman last week to set priorities for work on gender equality and women empowerment in light of the outcomes of the review of progress in the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action after 25 years of its inception. For her part, the Assistant Secretary General of the Arab League, Haifa Abu Ghazaleh, stressed the need to intensify efforts for the economic empowerment of women. It is unacceptable for the economic participation of women in the Arab world to record the lowest rate among world countries, she maintained. Similarly, the Arab Women Organization Executive Secretary, Fadia Kiwan, called for more coordination and solidarity to fulfill the rights of the Arab woman. (An Nahar, December 2, 2019)
 
 

The ISF General Directorate-Public Relations Division, issued two statements related to gender-based violence. The first one noted that the department has received information filed to the Southern Detachment Police Station- the Regional Gendarmerie Unit, about a person blackmailing and threatening to publish the pictures of a girl in return for his silence. The girl begged the suspect to stop his threats which he agreed to if she paid him a specific sum of money. The ISF statement went on to say, that after a tight ambush, the man, born in 1994, was arrested in Saida and turned in to the competent judiciary. The second statement, released on November 29, stated that the CyberCrime Bureau received a complaint filed to Beirut Public Prosecution by a university student against an unknown person involving extortion and threat to publish intimate videos via social media. Upon investigation and surveillance, the suspect, born in 1996, was identified and arrested in Bliss Street, Hamra, Beirut. On the other hand, members of the Lebanese Army Maritime Center in al Mina, Tripoli, found a handcuffed girl thrown in the sea but still alive. The victim did not have identity papers. Under shock, the girl did not speak and was transferred to the hospital for treatment. Security forces are investigating the case. (Al Mustaqbal, November 29, December 1, 2019)
 
 

Hundreds staged a demonstration in the Tunisian capital on November 30 in protest against gender-based violence and in support of the rights of women. The demonstrators who carried brooms called for cleansing their country from all forms of violence against Tunisian women. Participants in the rally which was called by some 50 local NGOs, chanted slogans including, ‘A feminist revolution against backwardness is an obligation’; ‘No violence’; ‘Gender-equality does not kill, violence does’, and ‘One regime ends, another begins and violence stays put’. Some women also knocked on steelpans. The former head of the Tunisian Association of Democratic Women, Monia Bin Juma’, one of the rally organizers, said violence against women is an indicator of a backward mindset. For her part, demonstrator Salma Bahr appealed to the authorities to end all forms of gender-based violence and to act strictly and responsibly against perpetrators. It should be noted, that the mobilization of the Tunisian civil society has grown since October 11, 2019, after a video posted by a high school student went viral. The video showed a member of the legislature behaving indecently in front of the school. Also, recalling that the Centre for Research, Studies, Documentation and Information on Women, a government institution, has launched, end of October, an awareness campaign on sexual harassment in all public transport with the aim to encourage victims to break silence and report assaults. (An Nahar, November 30, 2019)