BEIRUT: Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri said Monday that his Future Movement would back a draft law to protect women from domestic violence that is due to be voted on in Parliament Tuesday.
“The draft law is listed on Parliament’s agenda in tomorrow’s session; it is natural that I will do my best to endorse it not only because it was approved by a Cabinet I chaired but because it constitutes a qualitative civilized jump in the history of Lebanon,” Hariri said in a statement.
“[Such a law] is the first step towards granting Lebanese women their rights, in the hopes of completing legislative and legal procedures to give them the rest of their rights, mainly their right to pass on their nationality to their children,” Hariri said.
The draft law to protect women from domestic violence was first submitted to the Parliament in 2010, and a parliamentary subcommittee began studying it in May 2011 and finalized its amendments in August 2012.
The amendments altered the title of the text, which now refers to violence against the family, as opposed violence against women specifically. A key clause criminalizing marital rape was removed by the committee after it sparked a backlash from religious figures and some politicians.
Of the 128-member Parliament, 43 supported the draft law in 2012, mostly from the Lebanese Forces, the Free Patriotic Movement, the Future Movement and the Kataeb Party.
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