and the abused, the prosecution is suspended,' it reads. 'If a valid marriage contract exists between the perpetrator of one of these crimes.
The reviled article, which also deals with the rape of minors, allows offenders to escape punishment by wedding their victims. 'We are trying as much as we can to shed light on this issue and tell parliament that the time has come for them to vote on cancelling Article 522.' 'There are 31 days in a month and every single day, a woman may be raped and forced to marry her rapist,' said Alia Awada, advocacy manager at Lebanese non-government organisation ABAAD. Thirty-one wedding dresses made of white lace and wrapping paper hung limply from makeshift nooses between four palm trees along the Lebanese capital's corniche. Today, they urged Lebanese citizens to sign a campaign to ramp up the pressure on legislators at an open-air exhibit. It will go before parliament on May 15 and activists hope that MPs will vote to eliminate it.
Lebanese activists ramped up their campaign to scrap a controversial law allowing rapists who marry their victims to go free, with a dramatic installation today along Beirut's sunny seaside.Ī proposal to scrap Article 522 of the penal code - which deals with rape, assault, kidnapping and forced marriage - was introduced last year and approved by a parliamentary committee in February.
