WOMEN RIGHTS IN LIBANESE EPUBLIC

12 CMI REPORT NUMBER 3, SEPTEMBER 2017
to other legal measures to ensure that members of their mixed family can inherit from
them, often at risk of jeopardizing their own ownership while still alive. 19
Despite the legal complexity of contracting civil marriage in the Lebanese context, since
1951 there have been several (unsuccessful) attempts by civil society groups and political
leaders to lobby for the introduction of civil marriage in the country. In 1998, President
Elias Hrawi spearheaded such an effort by submitting a bill for the introduction of optional
civil marriage. However, his move was met with fierce rejection by both Muslim and
Christian religious leaders, who asserted that civil marriage “offends religious convictions
and undercuts the role of religious institutions” (AP 1998). The Hrawi bill, despite being
endorsed by a majority of ministers in the cabinet (22 out of 30), was never sent by Prime
Minister Rafic Hariri for a vote in parliament (El Hage 2009).
In 2011, the Chaml Association (led by activists Ougarit Younane and Walid Slaiby),
in conjunction with several other national NGOs, submitted a draft proposal for a civil
personal status law to parliament. The bill covered all aspects of personal status, including
marriage, divorce, child custody, and inheritance. Advocates for the law explained that
the movement for this law was motivated by “a refusal to submit to laws governed by the
confessional communities or to foreign laws applied in Lebanon” and that a civil personal
status law would “accustom people to the idea of a civil state, where everyone is subject
to the same laws” (Baaklini 2010). Although the bill enjoyed the support of a number
of parliamentarians, who managed to put it on the agenda of the joint parliamentary
committee on 18 March 2011, the draft has not yet been sent to parliament for debate.
2. Child marriage
Lebanon is a signatory to the United Nations Convention on Consent to Marriage, Minimum
Age for Marriage and Registration of Marriages of 1962; the International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights of 1966; and the Convention on the Rights of the Child of
1989. These international instruments require that both parties to a marriage personally
give their consent to the marriage in the presence of a relevant official or public servant.
Nonetheless, in spite of Lebanon’s adoption of these conventions (which have supremacy
over national laws), child marriage continues to be legal and practiced in Lebanon. This
cultural phenomenon “is part of the taboos in … Arab societies since it is directly related
to the personal status laws that assert the supremacy of men over women and establish the
power of the father over the family” (ABAAD and AIHR 2015, 5).
Since there are 15 different personal status laws in Lebanon, the minimum age for
marriage varies according to the religious community a couple belongs to. Nonetheless,
all confessions allow girls to marry at a younger age than boys, which clearly reflects the
extent to which child marriage is also a gender-based phenomenon. The minimum age
of girl marriage for some communities is set at 16, 17, or 18 (as in the Evangelistic, Sunni,
and Greek Orthodox communities, respectively), while in others it can be as low as 9 (as in
the Shi’ite community) (ibid., 22). Even when religious communities set the minimum age
for marriage at or slightly below the legal age of 18, they sometimes allow for exceptions
at the discretion of the religious judge. For example, the minimum age for a Sunni girl to
get married is 17, but a judge can allow the marriage of a nine-year-old girl. Similarly, the
Greek Orthodox personal status law sets the minimum marriage age at 18, but an exception
allows for the marriage of a 15-year old girl (ibid.).
Alarmingly, when allowing child marriage, religious judges ignore the issue of consent,
which remains the prerogative of the legal guardian, who is almost always the father or
another male relative. As a Sunni shari’a lawyer explained,
Based on my own experience, child marriages are happening a lot. Usually it is the mother
of the bride or groom who arranges the marriage. The child-bride often comes to court
19 Some couples in mixed marriages try to circumvent these inheritance-related restrictions by resorting to alternative
legal methods that come with their own set of risks. For example, they may sign contracts of sale or of gift to each
other or to their children, with the added risk that they may lose their right to their property while they are still alive,
should their children or spouse prove to be disloyal and dispose of the property before their death.