Examples of discrimination and worse against Lebanese women are pouring in at an accelerating pace. The examples range from controlling individual behavior to deadly violence. It occurs within the scope of family life — which in Lebanon is governed by varying mindsets of sectarianism, religious fanaticism and outdated ideas —and within the realm of public and personal life. There have even been attempts to impose foreign values and norms on women beyond the country’s laws and regulations and with which Lebanon has had no experience.
A brief inventory of the most recent such incidents will suffice. In October, a teenage girl named Eva was kidnapped and forced to marry, after which it appeared that such acts had become normal, especially involving Syrian refugee girls. Lebanese media and women's rights organizations often publish reports and investigations about the — often miserable — conditions of displaced Syrian girls, women and even children. Some nongovernmental organizations have reported the spread of prostitution among Syrian refugees. There have also been reports of “set prices” for marriages and the selling of Syrian girls. As this phenomenon has spread, so has the number of security incidents, especially in some remote, rural and agricultural areas of Lebanon such as Akkar, in the far north.
On Jan. 24 in Akkar, another Lebanese girl, age 12, was kidnapped for marriage. Despite the uproar that women’s organizations tried to raise against the kidnapper, who had clearly committed a crime, the case ended with the girl marrying her kidnapper — with her family’s consent and with the blessing of the so-called religious courts in Lebanon. In this case, the sect in question was Sunni Islam, which, according to some interpretations, allows the marriage of girls as soon as they reach the age of menstruation, typically between 9 and 13.
The motivations of parents to allow their young daughters to be married range from financial need to hiding the “scandal” in case the girl returns to her parents’ home. In addition, there is a mentality influenced by a religious view that accepts and justifies such actions. Some Islamic sects in Lebanon not only permit marrying minors but also allow polygamy, whereby a man can have up to four wives at the same time.
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