CAROLİNE BAZZI

Beirut- Women and women’s organizations have continued to hold events, protests, activities all around the world to mark the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence campaign. KAFA (enough) Violence and Exploitation, a Lebanese civil, non-governmental, non-profit, feminist, and secular organization seeking to create a society that is free of social, economic, and legal patriarchal structures that discriminate against women, has launched a campaign as part of the 16 Days of Activism campaign.

The organization has speeded up its works to demand a unified personal status law, particularly before the parliamentary elections expected to take place in the spring of 2022. We spoke to Zina Al-Awar, the media coordinator of KAFA, about their campaign.

“We focus on Lebanon's Personal Status Laws”

“This year, we focus on Lebanon’s Personal Status Laws as we did last year. We demand a unified personal status law (Lebanon has 15 separate personal status laws) as part of the 16 Days of Activism campaign. Since we see this issue as political, we have focused on it because the parliamentary elections are approaching. We have shared many informative posts, including infographics, articles, and videos, on social media platforms to draw attention to the importance of a unified personal status law,” she told us.

They demand gender equality

Pointing out that a unified personal status law is needed to prevent gender-based violence, Zina Al-Awar said, “The separation of personal status laws causes gender-based violence. Because some segments have more rights than other segments and this causes the increase of gender-based violence. For this reason, we demand a unified personal status law in order that all segments have equal rights. We demand gender equality. In this way, we can reduce violence against women.”

“We will keep struggling”

KAFA also demands the increase of women’s participation in politics. “Women have no rights in their families. We will keep struggling until all women get their rights and our demands are accepted,” Zina Al-Awar said that they have already begun to work for the upcoming elections. “We will further strengthen our demands for a unified law. New people will run for the general elections. We will monitor them to understand if they really want to have a unified law or just use it for their electoral campaigns. We know that some political parties also demand a unified law but they should raise their voices more.”