BEIRUT — The Beirut port explosion made Najat Saliba go into politics as a “counterreaction.”
I felt like I had to step out of my ivory tower in academia and start actually pushing for a new way of living forward,” the atmospheric chemistry specialist told Al-Monitor. Now, Saliba is one of eight female representatives in the Lebanese parliament, a record number of women among the 128 seats. Lebanon has one of the highest overall gender gaps in the world, and some of these women aim to fix that, now from inside the institutions.