Dozens of women rallied Saturday in front of the Lebanese parliament building at Place de l’Etoile in Beirut to demand harsher penalties against sex offenders in the country.
The women protesters were dressed in black with banners that read, among other slogans, «For a punishment commensurate with the crime.» The demonstrators then raised their fists and chanted slogans such as «Tougher penalties! This crime must be prosecuted!», according to An Nahar newspaper.
The demonstration comes after the women’s rights group Abaad reported that six out of ten women victims of sexual abuse choose not to file a complaint for fear of harming their family’s honor, according to Sky News.
The text is accompanied by a survey in which 75 percent of the women surveyed believe that sexual abuse is mainly a bodily and psychological attack, while 71 percent of them emphasize that Lebanese society sees this type of crime as an attack on the family’s honor.
The head of the organization, Guida Inati, insisted on the importance of taking this type of crime out of the narrow social view of «family honor», and to fight this scourge with force, according to statements reported by ‘L’Orient le Jour’.
In this regard, Inati announced the launch of a 16-day campaign starting this Saturday to end violence against women and girls, in constant coordination with the parliamentary blocs, for the reform of the penal code.
