I was watching a report on LBC on Sunday regarding sexual violence in Lebanon and the numbers they showed are quite scary to say the least. More importantly, they shed the light on the pathetic sentence that a person who commits incestuous rape gets when compared to the sentence of a person accused of cheque fraud. In fact, a person committed of incestuous rape can get five years while less serious crimes crimes could get you up to 10 years in prison.
Here are some of the stats shared following a survey conducted with 1000 people in Lebanon:
– 1 out of 4 women in Lebanon is a victim of sexual harassment.
– 6% of the Lebanese know at least one person who was a victim of sexual assault.
– Only 24% of the victims report the assault to the police.
– 49% of the sexual assaults were perpetrated by family members or relatives.
– 60% are in favor of severing punishment for sexual predators.
According to the ISF, at least 13 women have reported sexual assaults EVERY month since the start of 2017. Having said that, I think it’s highly important to shed the light on these numbers and encourage victims of sexual harassment or rape to speak up and name these sick sexual predators.
You can check out the full report [here].