‘Marital right to intercourse’ in Lebanese law enables rape

By Ellie Violet Bramley
Long-awaited bill originally drafted to protect women from violence has, bizarrely, endorsed a ‘marital right to intercourse’.

Until last week, there was no legislation protecting women from domestic violence in Lebanon, a country that exonerates rapists who marry their victims.

A landmark bill – the protection of women and family members from domestic violence – was passed by the Lebanese parliament on 1 April. All of the country’s 18 personal status laws discriminate against women, in effect trapping them in violent marriages, according to Rothna Begum, women’s rights researcher for the Middle East and north Africa region at Human Rights Watch.

Domestic violence in Lebanon is widespread, suggest Human Rights Watch and a local NGO, Kafa, which means “enough” in Arabic. Kafa says analysis of media reports shows that 25 women were killed by family members between 2010 and 2013. But the real figure, according to the organisation’s co-founder, Ghada Jabbour, is likely to be much higher as there are no national statistics on domestic violence.

Kafa says it receives more than 2,600 calls to its domestic abuse helpline each year. Recently, a spate of highly publicised deaths has focused public attention on women’s rights in the country. In February, Christelle Abu Shakra died after ingesting a fatal dose of insecticide under suspicious circumstances; days earlier Manal Assi was bludgeoned to death by her husband with a pressure cooker, and last week, Rouqaya Mounzer, a 24-year-old mother of two was shot dead by her husband.

Most of the deaths made headlines weeks before International Women’s Day on 8 March, triggering angry demonstrations across Beirut. Thousands of protesters marched through the capital calling for an end to domestic violence, with many carrying banners accusing judges and forensic experts of falsifying reports on the deaths.

The domestic violence bill, drafted by Kafa in 2007, had been pending in parliament since 2010. According to Jabbour, the joint parliament committees approved the draft in July 2013 after making several amendments. “The religious courts and authorities really had a backlash against the original provision which would have criminalised marital rape,” Begum says. Both Dar al-Fatwa, the country’s highest Sunni Muslim authority, and the Higher Shia Islamic Council opposed the bill.

Kafa then lobbied MPs to retain much of the original draft. They received 71 signatures of support, but not a single MP kept their promise, says Begum. The bill now reads (pdf) somewhat awkwardly. A key clause criminalising marital rape was also removed.

The legal definition of domestic violence is incredibly narrow, says Begum. It is described as “an act, act of omission, or threat of an act committed by any family member against one or more family members … related to one of the crimes stipulated in this [bill], and that results in killing, harming, or physical, psychological, sexual, or economic harm”. The crimes stipulated are: “forced begging, prostitution, homicide, adultery and the use of force or threats to obtain sex”. Even the crime of assault – as defined under Lebanese law – is not criminalised explicitly as a form of domestic violence.

The domestic violence bill does, however, contain a number of protective measures. Women can now apply for a restraining order against an assailant, and emergency accommodation is provided for victims of abuse – earlier, many at-risk women were forced to share a home with their attacker.

Women sometimes cited the unsympathetic attitude of many police officers as something that discouraged them from reporting violence. But Jabbour says attitudes within the force are beginning to change. Last November Kafa launched a scheme to educate police on how to protect women from domestic violence. According to Jabbour, the initiative, partnered by the general directorate of the police force, has played a positive role in fostering trust in the community.

Kafa says the most worrying omission in the domestic violence bill is the criminalisation of marital rape, which was not included in the legislation. It follows a plea in 2008 from the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women for Lebanon to address gender inequality. Where Kafa’s draft bill called for the criminalisation of marital rape, categorising it as a form of domestic violence, the draft legislation introduces the idea of a “marital right to intercourse” for the first time.

“This is a very big setback,” Jabbour says. “We lobbied, we made a huge fuss around it, we staged a name-and-shame campaign. They [the politicians considering the bill] felt pressure to re-put in a provision about marital rape, but what they put in criminalises the use of threats or force in order to get what they call ‘the marital right’. The use of force is criminalised anyway by the penal code in Lebanon. This is just playing with words … the use of the ‘marital right’ is a very new and religious concept within our civil law.”

Another grey area is maternal custody rights. While the domestic violence bill promises the victim and her offspring the right to a protection order, children are defined as those “who are in the custody of the victim as established in the applicable personal status laws”.

However, the age at which a mother has sole responsibility for her children is determined by scripture. “In the Shia sect, for instance, the age of custody for boys is two; for girls it is seven,” Jabbour says. In practice, this could leave many women unwilling to apply for protection for fear of having to leave behind children as young as three.

The draft legislation and its limited scope aside, wider strategies and shifts around women’s rights in Lebanon still need to be implemented. Begum says the causes of domestic abuse need to be addressed: boys and men should be educated on gender equality, and the personal status laws must be reformed.

The immediate future of the domestic violence bill remains unclear. The Lebanese president, Michel Suleiman, has reportedly said he will study the draft legislation with parliament and make some amendments before it is made law. “What’s not clear is what they will consider a priority,” Begum says. “Marital rape, for instance, is a key provision that they need to have back in there.”

The Guardian