News

A number of women groups took part in the As Safir day organized on Saturday December 15th at the Biel exhibition centre and introduced visitors to the various on-going campaigns seeking to reform laws that remain discriminatory against women.  The process kicked off with CRTD.A-supported campaign “My Nationality is a Right for me and my Family” which introduced the public to the background of that initiative launch in early 2001 as well as the progress noted in the reform of the nationality laws in Egypt, Algeria Morocco, Yemen, Libya, UAE, and, more recently, KSA.  Progress in Lebanon was also noted at the level of the three-years residency permit issued in 2010, reform of the work permit procedures in 2011 as well as the newly set up Ministerial Committee to review the law and suggest reforms coupled with the law petition submitted by the National Commission for Lebanese Women.  Ruwad Frontiers for their part focused on the issue of stateless people in Lebanon and the impact that statelessness has on the ability to have a “normal;” social and professional life and enjoy health and education.
For its part, the Working Women League focused on the religious family laws in Lebanon and shared the work of the Lebanese network for family rights as well as the work of other women organisations in reforming the family code notably in what relates to child custody age.
Finally, “Kafa” noted the progress in the law petition to protect women from family violence and highlighted three new positive changes namely reintroducing women within the law’s headline, reconsidering the issue of marital rape and reviewing clause 12 which relates to the protection of children in custody age.

Source: Al-Safir Article 1, Article 2, Article 3, Article 4 - 17 December 2012

The National Commission for Lebanese Women organized a workshop entitled “Strategic planning from a gender perspective within public institutions”.  The workshop was organised within the framework of developing the NCLW 2011-2012 operational plan and was in collaboration with the Bassel Fuleihan finance institute and Tanmyah Company.  The NCLW emphasized during the workshop that it refutes all forms of discrimination against women in laws and services as well as the nomenclature of jobs and positions in the public sector.

The workshop also sought to mobilize the gender focal points assigned in all Ministries as well as strengthen their role in mainstreaming gender in policies and national strategies.  Participants highlighted the various forms of discrimination against women in the nationality laws, labor laws, and coverage of the national Social Security Funds as well as pension schemes for working women and their families.  Participants also discussed the current discriminatory practices in both the diplomatic and judicial sectors.

Source: Al-Mustaqbal 17 December 2012

Al Akhbar newspaper published the result of a study conducted by Nahawand Kaderi on the ways in which the media addresses the issue of violence against women and especially the difficulties faced by journalists whilst working on this topic.  The study monitored radio stations, newspapers, magazines. News broadcasts on TV, soap operas, talk shows, and comedies in order to construct indicators to measure media coverage of gender based violence. The study pointed out to serious gaps in the way that the media deals with this issue in addition to the exploitation of victims as well as the stereotyping of women.
Kaderi also noted the difficulties faced by media staff namely job insecurity, inability to manage huge data, inability to keep up with progress in IT and social media as well as their experience of different forms of violence namely political violence, financial violence as well as family and confessional violence.  The researcher concluded that since journalists are not protected by their Trade Union or by a legal framework, they had no option but to have recourse to politicians who are also media moguls, adding that the sector is overwhelmed by male stars who exploite younger professionals and namely women.

Source: Al-Akhbar 14 December 2012

Smart centre launched yesterday a project funded by the US Embassy small grants programme entitled “Supporters of Women’s Voices.  The launch included key note addresses by Smart director Randa Yassir, the project director Sylva Akl and the representative of the US Embassy Rebecca A. Haskamp.  Speakers outlined the main objective of the project namely supporting women’s participation in politics and in decision making through boosting their confidence with various training interventions.  The project will be implemented in a number of phases starting with a 6 days training targeting 40 participants and covering techniques for effective campaigning.  This will be followed by the organization of public debates with 500 women in the North, Mount Lebanon and the South.  The last phase of the project seeks to enable participants in the training to take part in a research looking at how political campaigns are run in Lebanon.

Source: The Daily Star, Al-Mustaqbal, Al-Nahar 14 December 2012

The American University of Beirut released yesterday the results of a study conducted between June 2011 and June 2012 and entitled: “National study on violence against female and male nurses: prevalence, impact and causes”.  The study covered a sample of 593 nurses working all over Lebanon and showed that 62% of the sample are subjected to verbal abuse whilst 10% are subject to physical violence in their place of work.  The nurses who were interviewed showed signs of burnout as 51% of them gave signs of emotional and psychological distress.  The study revealed that 28.8% of the nurses are not capable of any form of empathy vis-à-vis their patients whilst 24.1% indicated low levels of self esteem. It indicated that the source of verbal abuse is usually the medical and administrative staff followed by patients and their families and of physical abuse is outside the workplace.  Finally, the study pointed out that 31.7% of the nurses said that they might leave their work whilst 22.3% indicated that they hesitate in taking such a step.
Source: Al-Safir, Al-Akhbar, Al-Hayat 13 December 2012

An Nahar newspaper published a study conducted by Breathe on the prevalence of chronic lung obstruction and its main cause, chronic smoking.  The results were shared during a press conference organized by Glaxosmithkline (GSK) at the Phoenicia Hotel with the attendance of Dr. Asaad Khoury representing the Minister of Public Health.
The study indicated that the percentage of women smokers in Lebanon is higher and less than one third of the disease carriers have been diagnosed and of these, only one third are receiving treatment.  Chronic lung obstruction affects 13 million people in the Arab region and it affects the circulation of oxygen from and to the lungs.  The study notes that 5.3% of the Lebanese population aged 40 and above is affected by the disease compared to 3.6% for the Arab region as a whole.  This disease has resulted in 1000 medical consultation, 190 emergency admission and 175 cases of hospitalization every hour, in the Arab region.
In an interview with An Nahar, Prof. Marie Louise Konisky indicated that the outputs of this research will be released in the form of 8 papers which will be published by the medical journal Respiratory Medicine and will include data on smoking prevalence as well as information about the disease, its treatment, and its cost.

Source: Al-Nahar 13 December 2012

The MaterPeace club organized in collaboration with the Lebanese Young Peace Journalists a workshop on Monday December 10 a workshop entitled “the role of the media in combating violence against women within the framework of Resolution 1325: women, peace and security”.  The workshop was held at AltCity in Hamra.  The workshop was facilitated by Vanessa Bassil the president of MaterPeace club and included interventions on the situation of women in the laws by Manar Zaiter from RDFL, the concept of gender by Roula Masri from Abaad, and domestic violence by Rima Abi Nader by Kafa.
Forensic doctor Naji Saaibi discussed the health problems resulting from gender based violence whilst journalist Maha Zaraket shared media examples and illustrations.  The workshop also included the viewing of a documentary on gender based violence produce by Dina Mokalled from Al Mustakbal TV.  Journalists Saada Allaw (As Safir) and Najia al Houssari (Al Hayat) gave presentations on the relation between the reporter and his/her institution and with his/her news sources.
Finally, researcher Nahawand Al Kaderi presented the result of a research she conducted on the ways in which the media addresses issues of violence against women and which was done in collaboration with UNDP.

Source: Al-Mustaqbal 11 December 2012

In its issue of Saturday, December 8th, the As Safir newspaper published the results of an official survey on women’s participation in agriculture in which they are playing an active role and increasing productivity.  However and according to observers, the extent of women participation remains unclear and poorly documents.  The rights of women in agriculture also remain sidelined partly as a result of the overarching stereotype which undermines women’s position as well as the absence of systematic tracking and monitoring of women’s role and contribution as part of on-going studies and researches.

In her interview with As Safir, the head of the National Observatory of Rural Women (NOWARA), Ms. Wafa Dikah noted that although the Ministry of Agriculture produces gender desegregated data, however, this is still not sufficient in reflecting women’s actual contribution despite the fact that women are involved in diverse agricultural sectors such as agro-processing, rural agriculture, seasonal agriculture, land ownership as well as several other sectors.  Dika noted that current statistics do not distinguish between seasonal agricultural women workers and business holders, a matter which does not help in understanding the real size of women’s participation in agriculture.  She also indicated that the income of women in agriculture is only one third of that of men (women are paid LBP 8,000 per hour of work whereas men are paid LBP 12,000).  Another shortfall noted by Dika was the fact that agriculture workers who are included in statistics, whether women or men, are only those who are registered with agricultural institutions. Rural women are often not counted although they assume ownership of land parcels which means that they work and harvest their own land and contribute to national agricultural production.  The official survey also noted that women’s participation in dairy production is quite high reaching 63%.  In addition, there are some 120 registered rural women cooperatives who market locally with some marketing externally as well.
In a related vein, the president of the syndicate of agro-industries, George Nesrawi, noted that 35 to 40% of the workers in these industries are women but that only 2% of the agro industries are owned by women.
For his part, the advisor to the Minister of Labour, Dr. Salah Hajj Hassan, refuted in his interview with As Safir that women are not included in the Ministry’s programmes or statistics saying that the issues raised by NOWARA are secondary and related to the perspective of NOWARA but does not touch the basics  .  Hajj Hassan described the different agricultural sectors in which women are involved namely livestock, dairy production as well as other sectors and were they constitute some 40% of the total size of the sector.  Hajj Hassan noted that the Ministry is about to initiate a programme to support the agricultural sector and improve the work conditions as well as put in place regulatory mechanisms.  This programme was adopted by the government two years ago and will lead to increasing investment in agriculture.
Also with regards to statistics, it is to be noted that official statistics related to agriculture are issued every ten years only.  In 1998, the percentage of women who own land and their family was 30% of total whereas the percentage of recorded women workers in agriculture was 18% of total.  In 2010, women holders of agricultural land dropped to 8.6%. However and according to Dika, the main weakness in these figures is that the Ministry did not analyse them and did not disaggregate the sub-sectors where women are active, as such, women’s actual role in agriculture was not documented properly.

Finally, what is disturbing in the Ministry’s latest statistics which were communicated by Dika is the limited engagement of young women and men in agriculture.  Indeed, women involved in agriculture and who are less than 25 years old do not exceed 1.1% of total women whereas the number of women in the 25 to 34 age bracket constitutes 5.4%, those between 25 and 44 reach 15.6%, while the percentage rise to 24.2% for those between 45 to 54 years old and to 31.3% for those above 55 years.

Source: Al-Safir 8 December 2012

On the occasion of the International Day for Human Rights, The National Gathering to Abolish Discrimination Against Women organized yesterday in collaboration with “Because they are my children, my nationality is their right” national campaign, a sit in at the Jebran Khalil Jebran garden across from the UN-ESCWA headquarters. The coordinator of the National Gathering, Azza Al Horr-Mroueh noted that not allowing Lebanese women from passing citizenship to their children is a violation of their rights. She asked parliamentarians and political parties to indicate whether Lebanon is a state for citizens or for confessional communities.
Mroueh added that the Lebanese nationality law discriminates against women and asked policy makers to initiate a reform of discriminatory laws in Lebanon especially the nationality law which affects 20000 Lebanese women married to non-nationals.
The national coalition for the enactment of a law to protect women from domestic violence concluded its 16 days campaign against violence against women.  The Coalition declared in a press release that it was able to bring back the work “women” into the title of the law proposal and is heading toward reconsidering marital law as a punishable offense.  The national coalition to legalize women’s protection from domestic violence announced as well, that it now has the approval and signature of 44 parliamentarians on petition about those amendments.
The Lebanese Women’s Affairs, held a meeting concluded with a press release which noted that Arab revolutions were caused by decades of violations of civil, economic, social, political and environmental rights.   According to the association, the recording of these human rights violation was key in dethroning former rulers.

Source: Al-Safir, Al-Akhbar, Al-Nahar, Al-Mustaqbal