Domestic Violence Shift From Religious to Civil Issue

Annemarie Webster
SOC 202/IGS 223
09/23/09

A Lebanese organization (KAFA) that campaigns against violence and the exploitation of women is hoping to bring an important issue before the new Lebanese parliament. Activists and lawmakers are trying to get the issue of domestic violence cases away from religious courts and into civil courts. Until now, women in abusive relationships have received little or no help from hospitals, police and under-funded women's centers. Hospitals and police departments fail to complete incident reports or press charges against abusive husbands. Ghida Anani, programme coordinator of KAFA, "estimates that as many as three-quarters of all Lebanese women have suffered physical abuse at the hands of husbands or male relatives at some point in their lives." If these abused women make it to court, and are granted a divorce, it is most likely that custody of their children will be given to the abusive husband, and she will often have no visitation rights. These outcomes encourage women to stay in physically, verbally and emotionally abusive homes for their whole life.
This is backwards. A woman who complains the her husband and the father of her children is beating her and if she's lucky enough to be "allowed" to divorce him, that same abusive husband is now the sole care-giver for the children. His daughters will most likely be abused and his sons will learn that the actions of his father are the correct ones. This situation is sick and twisted and self-propagating. One thing I would like to know: Why is the abuse rate so high? Maybe if people were not forced into marriages at such a young age or were allowed to marry people they actually loved, men would not be so apt to hit their wives and children. I'm glad that this shift is being attempted for the sake of the women and the future generations of husbands.

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