Lebanon religious laws discriminate against women: rights group

BEIRUT: Lebanon’s religion-based personal status laws discriminate against women across the religious spectrum and don’t guarantee their basic rights, Human Rights Watch said in a new report published Monday.

“Human Rights Watch reviewed all personal status laws in Lebanon and analyzed 447 recent legal judgments issued by the various religious courts adjudicating cases of divorce, custody of children, spousal support, and child support,” the NGO said in the 114-page report. “These religiously based personal status laws particularly disadvantage women.”

HRW found that all religious personal status laws impose greater barriers for women than men who wish to terminate unhappy or abusive marriages, initiate divorce proceedings, ensure their rights concerning their children after divorce, or secure pecuniary rights from a former spouse.

Lebanon has 15 separate personal status laws for its officially recognized religions but no civil code covering issues such as divorce, property rights, or care of children, the report said, highlighting that the religious courts are barely monitored by the government.

“The Lebanese parliament should adopt an optional civil code that would ensure equal rights for all Lebanese who wish to marry under it,” the activist group said. “The government should exercise oversight over religious courts and authorities to ensure compliance with human rights obligations.”

The report said that the discrimination in the personal status laws infringe upon the human rights of both women and their children, whose best interests are often overlooked in judicial decisions.

Lebanon’s lack of an egalitarian civil code, it added, also violates several international human rights conventions that the country has ratified, including: the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

“Not only are Lebanese citizens of various religions treated unequally under the law, but women are treated unfairly across the board, and their rights and security go unprotected,” said Nadim Houry, deputy Middle East and North Africa director.

“Passage of an optional civil marriage code, alongside badly needed reforms to existing personal status laws and religious courts, are long overdue.”