Women don't need flowers
Women in my country do not need flowers, praise, or compliments for their excellence on happy occasions, while a thousand arguments are presented to them to undermine every legitimate demand and obtain a lost right.
Women in my country do not need empty promises in closed and public meetings and on podiums, while the path of draft laws that grant them their rights is mined, so that they sink into the depths of oblivion, with every milestone and entitlement.
Women in my country do not need resonant words about women’s rights and long speeches about their heroism, although they deserve it. Rather, they need the enactment of laws and legal amendments, and social and cultural awareness, so that the scales of justice are straightened.
Women in Lebanon have been fighting for their rights for decades, and we have prominent pioneers in this field. Lebanese women have been able to gain respect and appreciation locally and even globally, after achieving accomplishments on all levels. However, Lebanese women are still facing all challenges with an iron will in these circumstances that Lebanon is going through, in an unprecedented crisis that has struck all its foundations and rendered all its institutions dilapidated.
Women in my country are forbidden from granting their nationality to their children, which makes the family live with difficulties that touch the tragedy in work, study, social services (if they exist after the financial and monetary collapse), health care, and others.. And every time a draft law is proposed, the number of which exceeds five, it is lost in the alleys and corridors of profit and loss calculations in politics and sectarianism. And whoever brags about Lebanon’s leadership in the field of legislative work, a look from those around him about the law granting women their nationality to their families, makes us realize how far we have fallen behind in promoting women’s rights in this field, and from nationality to early marriage for children, as these cases are increasing with the absence of legislation that sets the age of 18 for marriage and protects children and minors from early marriage, which is the age according to Lebanese law that is considered the standard for individuals to enjoy legal capacity. And from marriage to the law protecting women and protecting family members, which must be expanded to include all minor children in addition to amendments to the labor law, the employee system, and the benefits of the National Social Security Fund.
Mothers in Lebanon today, scream in pain as they bid farewell to their children who left the country in search of a livelihood, after the doors of the future were closed in front of them. Everything that mothers planted with love, effort and sacrifices, someone came to snatch from them every station of hope, and pasture of sweet memories, and force them to swallow the pain of separation. In a time of successive collapses, hardships and victims increase, and the first of them is the woman who must struggle on all levels to be as Lebanon was in its golden age or as the hero of Lebanon’s independence, President Riad Al-Solh, wanted it to be in the ministerial statement of the first independence government, when he said: We want Lebanon to be a homeland, dear, independent, sovereign and free.
On International Women's Day, all that women in Lebanon want is to reclaim their homeland with its message, values, and freedom, so that its sun can shine again.
A bouquet of laws and reforms scented with justice and hope for Lebanon to regain its health and radiance may be the sweetest gift for women on their international day of struggle.
May Serbie Shahab
Women in my country do not need empty promises in closed and public meetings and on podiums, while the path of draft laws that grant them their rights is mined, so that they sink into the depths of oblivion, with every milestone and entitlement.
Women in my country do not need resonant words about women’s rights and long speeches about their heroism, although they deserve it. Rather, they need the enactment of laws and legal amendments, and social and cultural awareness, so that the scales of justice are straightened.
Women in Lebanon have been fighting for their rights for decades, and we have prominent pioneers in this field. Lebanese women have been able to gain respect and appreciation locally and even globally, after achieving accomplishments on all levels. However, Lebanese women are still facing all challenges with an iron will in these circumstances that Lebanon is going through, in an unprecedented crisis that has struck all its foundations and rendered all its institutions dilapidated.
Women in my country are forbidden from granting their nationality to their children, which makes the family live with difficulties that touch the tragedy in work, study, social services (if they exist after the financial and monetary collapse), health care, and others.. And every time a draft law is proposed, the number of which exceeds five, it is lost in the alleys and corridors of profit and loss calculations in politics and sectarianism. And whoever brags about Lebanon’s leadership in the field of legislative work, a look from those around him about the law granting women their nationality to their families, makes us realize how far we have fallen behind in promoting women’s rights in this field, and from nationality to early marriage for children, as these cases are increasing with the absence of legislation that sets the age of 18 for marriage and protects children and minors from early marriage, which is the age according to Lebanese law that is considered the standard for individuals to enjoy legal capacity. And from marriage to the law protecting women and protecting family members, which must be expanded to include all minor children in addition to amendments to the labor law, the employee system, and the benefits of the National Social Security Fund.
Mothers in Lebanon today, scream in pain as they bid farewell to their children who left the country in search of a livelihood, after the doors of the future were closed in front of them. Everything that mothers planted with love, effort and sacrifices, someone came to snatch from them every station of hope, and pasture of sweet memories, and force them to swallow the pain of separation. In a time of successive collapses, hardships and victims increase, and the first of them is the woman who must struggle on all levels to be as Lebanon was in its golden age or as the hero of Lebanon’s independence, President Riad Al-Solh, wanted it to be in the ministerial statement of the first independence government, when he said: We want Lebanon to be a homeland, dear, independent, sovereign and free.
On International Women's Day, all that women in Lebanon want is to reclaim their homeland with its message, values, and freedom, so that its sun can shine again.
A bouquet of laws and reforms scented with justice and hope for Lebanon to regain its health and radiance may be the sweetest gift for women on their international day of struggle.
May Serbie Shahab