EDITORIAL: Change? Yes we Can Believe in!

We often hear people say that women in Lebanon are the most emancipated in the Middle East region. But this saying isn't exactly true because it is only based on the rich Lebanese minority who drives luxurious cars, and enjoys the pink side of life frequenting the most famous restaurants of the country's capital.

But the less fortunate Lebanese women have to endure the tough discrimination of one of the most patriarchal country in the Arab world. The Lebanese government doesn't consider the women as a full citizen because the system is based on sexism and discrimination. And it is often said that: “A citizen in Lebanon is a male citizen”. In fact, the third CEDAW report states: “whichever denomination she belongs to, a Lebanese woman is victim of gender discrimination in her contact with the personal status law”; adding that men in Lebanon are fully supported by the government while women and their rights are totally denied. The discrimination of women in Lebanon appears in many laws:

The Personal Status Laws:

Lebanon is multi confessional (18 confessions); and enforcement of Personal Status Law is in the hand of the various religious courts. There is no one unified civil law that defines the personal status law. Consequently, there are 15 different personal status codes, in Lebanon, one of the smallest countries in the Arab Region. These different laws cover inheritance, marital relations and other related areas. Although women's rights and their equality with men are part of the country's constitution, they are barely respected in real life.

A woman who obtains divorce in Lebanon suffers by lots of injustices that come with it, regarding children's custody and future remarriage. Therefore, although the parental authority goes back to the father, he's also the rightful and legal guardian in most personal status law. Whereas women rarely get the children's custody, and if they get it, they have no legal rights upon them. When it comes to remarriage, most Christian and Islamic personal status law state that if the woman remarries, she loses custody of the children.

As for inheritance, the laws differ depending on religions. For Muslims, daughters inherit half as much as their brothers because Muslims don't consider women as the member of the family who has financial responsibilities. But what if she divorces and gets the custody of her children, how will she be able to assume their living; in a country where fathers can easily refuse to pay the modest financial participation fixed by the tribunal?

The Nationality Law:

The most important discrimination against women in Lebanon is the Nationality Law.

The Lebanese nationality can only be given by the father to his children no matter where they are born. Men can also grant it to their foreign views while women can't by any mean grant it to their foreign husband. In this law, discrimination also appears between the originally Lebanese mothers and the mothers that have acquired it through marriage. These naturalized mothers can give their children the nationality after the death of their father while Lebanese mothers by origin cannot do so.
A recent UNDP study states that during the period of 1995-2008, 18 000 Lebanese women married to foreigners were deprived from their right to nationality (which implies 80 000 men, children and women deprived from being Lebanese citizen).Sad to know, that the answer of the minister of interior affairs his Excellency Mr Baroud answered:” There is now way out, it's a political issue.”

What are the solutions to overcome this national problem?

A saying in English states: “When there's a will there's a way”. If all the Lebanese women unify to overcome this problem, and try their best to amend these discriminative laws from the Lebanese constitution, they WILL be able to do so.

These are the solutions I propose:

1.Impower Lebanese women and help them getting organized through committees whose only goal is to obtain their rights.
2.Involve the civil society (NGO's, Political parties, social organizations…) to form groups of pressure on the government.
3.Collaborate with specialists in political sciences, sociology and demography, to make studies describing the impact of these discrepancies on women in Lebanon, and to point out the social problems these discriminations are causing.
4.Use the different means of pressure (media, manifestations, petitions, statistic reports, conferences and strikes) to propagate the impact of these discrepancies.
5.Work on the political structures, to try to change the laws and in the same time on the civil society to change the mentality and spread awareness trough educating the young Lebanese generations about their rights and duties.
6.Finally, work towards laicization of the Lebanese society and implement civil marriage to cancel the inequalities and discrepancies caused by the personal status law.
In conclusion, though women suffer from discrimination in Lebanon awareness is increasing, I believe changes will come! This is what supports my say:

I have a dream, that one day my son and daughter will have equal rights and opportunities and will both be considered in Lebanon as full citizen.

I have a dream that one day, while walking on the street in any country of the world, I'm going to read “XXX's company S.A.L and daughters”.

I have dream that one day, if I marry a foreigner my children will also be Lebanese

Finally, I have a dream, that one day such a subject won't be given to students anymore, for it not being relevant.