Why Lebanon Urgently Needs a Comprehensive Law to Protect Women

In Lebanon, women remain acutely vulnerable to a wide range of abuses and acts of violence, largely because there is still no political will to enact meaningful legislative reform to dismantle entrenched discrimination. The figures speak for themselves: up to November 2025, 89% of all reports made to hotline 1745 – dedicated to domestic violence – came from women. In 57.5% of these cases, the aggressor was the husband. In 2024 alone, at least 17 women were killed; in 60% of those cases, the perpetrator was their spouse.

Confronted with this alarming reality and staying true to its mission since its creation in 2005, Kafa – an NGO fighting gender-based violence and exploitation – is calling for the adoption of a comprehensive law, an “essential tool”, it argues, to prevent and combat this phenomenon. To highlight the urgency of such legislation, the organization launched “Ayb”, or “Shame on You”, on 25 November, marking the start of the international “Sixteen Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence Against Women and Girls”, which runs until 10 December, International Human Rights Day.

“The adoption of a comprehensive law is all the more crucial because the Lebanese state has still not formally recognized violence against women,” explains Leila Awada, lawyer and co-founder of Kafa. “We’ve seen this before with the domestic violence law. For eight years, we campaigned for a text that would protect women, but Parliament ultimately passed a law covering every family member. The same happened with the law against sexual harassment, which includes no mechanisms to protect women, even though they are the primary victims.”

A Model Arab Law

Putting words into action, Kafa has drafted a bill designed to prevent and combat violence against women. The work began in 2017, following calls at the time for an exemplary Arab law on the issue.

Presented to Parliament in 2024 by several so-called ‘change’ MPs, the document draws heavily on the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, better known as the Istanbul Convention. Concluded and signed on 11 May 2011 in Türkiye, it entered into force on 1 August 2014.

To date, it bears the signatures of 43 member states of the Council of Europe and of the European Union, although Türkiye withdrew in 2021, followed by Latvia in 2025. It has been ratified by 37 states, as well as the EU. Binding on its state parties, the convention remains open to non-member countries of the Council of Europe.

Four Pillars

The draft law put forward by Kafa is built around four pillars: prevention, protection, prosecution, and reparation.

Under the prevention pillar, the relevant ministries and authorities are urged to adopt a range of proactive measures. These include, for example, integrating chapters on gender equality into school curricula; tackling school dropout rates, particularly among girls; training investigators in best practices for handling domestic violence complaints and case files; developing programs to strengthen women’s social and economic autonomy; and amending legal provisions that discriminate against women.

When it comes to protection, victims of domestic violence should be offered psychological, medical, and social support. The state should also provide free legal advice, help women access employment, and ensure they have safe accommodation. Therapeutic programs for perpetrators of violence should likewise be established.

In terms of prosecution, the document presented by Kafa recommends a series of measures ranging from clear definitions of the various forms of violence – including rape and economic violence – to tougher penalties for crimes committed against women. It also provides for a duty to report, easier procedures for filing complaints based on the victim’s place of residence, the suspension of provisions granting mitigating circumstances, the criminalization of all forms of violence against women, the establishment of a specialized judicial body at every stage of investigation and trial, and the possibility for victims to obtain a protection order.

As for reparation, Kafa proposes the creation of a fund to support women who have experienced violence, ensuring the payment of advances owed to victims under judicial rulings, the partial or full payment of compensation, and covering the costs required for the rehabilitation of perpetrators.

A National Strategy

“The document prepared by Kafa effectively serves as a national strategy on how the state should act to protect women and prevent violence,” explains Leila Awada. “Prevention necessarily involves addressing the structural causes of such violence, among which the different personal status laws that each religious community enforces are key. This is why a unified civil code is so important, especially given that the fifteen existing laws create injustice not only between men and women, but also among women themselves, whose rights and obligations remain determined by the laws of the religious community to which they belong.”