Joseph A. Kechichian, Senior Writer – Gulf news

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.