News

First lady Wafaa Suleiman met the president of the EU ambassador Angelina Echhorist to discuss the status of women in Lebanon and the rules governing her rights, stressing the importance of quota on the new elections law temporarily to encourage women to
In addition, they discussed a new project funded by EU aiming to enforce gender equality.

Working from the grassroots, the founders of Nasawiya Café opened its doors this month in Beirut’s Mar Mikhail district.  The Café offers a progressive and open space concept for everyone, in particular, the activist community where the venue hosts dozens of gatherings by organizations.  Patrons can expect affordable “pay what you can” prices for food and drink as well as venue rental.

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With the absence of legal protection, domestic workers in Lebanon often suffer injustice and outrageous malpractices.  Domestic workers are mistreated with very low working standards. The International Labour Organization (ILO) highlights Lebanon’s dark side to their economic activity in a workshop aiming to reinforce the role of nonprofits to defend and protect the rights of domestic workers.

In collaboration, Abaad and the International Medical Corps launched the "Men's Center" aiming to provide psychological support and social guidance to men.  The Center was developed from the results of new scientific studies that indicate the importance to involve men as real partners in order to stop violence against women.

Mustaqbal newspaper published the results of an academic research that studied the image of women in the media. The conducted research answered questions such as: “Are women the decision makers of the media policy?” and “Are their participation in it real or they are just puppets of capitalism and market?”

With women making up 61% of the media industry, the producers and the anchors are 94% male. The question is raised whether the Arab media and the women in the media highlight the roles of women in reality?

The results showed that women in Lebanon have not accomplished the same level as men as Lebanon is a patriarchic society.

Nabil Nicolas, Member of Parliament (MP) of the Free Patriotic Movement withdrew from the subcommittee studying the draft law to protect women from violence. His withdrawal comes after Shant Janjanian, MP of the Lebanese Forces, last week, which raised questions regarding the destiny of the proposed law.

Laila Al-Solh Hamade, Vice President of Al-Walid Bin Talal, a humanitarian association, opened its first youth athlete club in Batroun built by the association itself.

KAFA: Stop Violence and Exploitation, issued a press release regarding the incident of infant Ghena who was tortured to death.  There is a concern over the many contributors and facilitators to crimes against women and girls where the state does not have the ability or resource to protect their female citizens or take a stand against any domestic violence.

MP Strida Geagea media office issued a press release emphasizing that Lebanese forces will not accept any change in the draft of protecting women against family violence law.
The release emphasized the following points:

• Lebanese Forces will only support the draft in its original formula
• Rejecting any changes in the title of the law
• Convicting any sort of economic violence against women
   

Center for Education Research and Development" and "National Committee for the follow-up women's issues" cordially held a seminar where they displayed the results of a study analyzing textbooks to eliminate stereotypes of gender as part of a project to support gender equality in education in Lebanon. Directions issued by this project will be essential in the process of authoring new textbooks including all educational materials.