WUNRN
LEBANON - HIDDEN DOMESTIC ABUSE
REVEALED IN PHOTO DISPLAY
PROPOSED NEW DOMESTIC VIOLENCE LAW
FOR LEBANON
By
Natalia Antelava - BBC News, Beirut |
He beat them every day, but
some days were worse than others.
On those days he would first
attack the children -he would tie up and beat their son and daughter.
If she tried to stop him, he
would put a knife to their throats and threaten to kill them.
On other days he would ask
her and the children to chose their own instrument of torture - a thick
electric cable, a hammer, a hose.
The images fuse confusion anger and
pain |
After each beating - and some of them lasted for hours - he would rape her and then force all three of them into a shower to wash off the blood.
"That's the shower," Khadija says calmly, pointing at a blurry photograph of a dilapidated bathroom.
"I hate showers,"
she adds.
She clicks through the
photographs of the house where for years, she says, they lived through hell.
Its been almost 10 years
since her husband left them and gained asylum in the
"I shook and cried, and
I thought he would jump out of the walls and attack me, but I had to be there
to take these pictures," she says.
Torture
The pictures, along with
photographs of ten other women, are now part of the show called "Behind
the Doors" which be will touring all around
|
Women
here party, many dress as they like, they work. But if you dig deeper and if
you look at the issue of marriage, women have no rights Ghida Anani |
From
semi-surrealist self portraits, to a series called "the instruments of
torture", to blurry almost mystical images of rooms that are forever
linked with violence - the images fuse confusion, anger and pain.
The pictures are the result
of a three-month workshop sponsored by the Italian government.
"We brought together a
group of women, gave them very simple digital cameras and my job was to teach
them basics of photography," says photographer Dalia Khamissy.
"I never expected that
the final product would be so extraordinary," she adds.
"The photos are good
because these women have so much to say," Dalia Khamissy says.
Women say taking photos
helped them to learn how to live with horrors of what they gone through.
Taboo
Organisers hope that by
exhibiting their work they will get the rest of the country to listen to their
stories.
Domestic violence is a huge
problem all across the Arab world. It's also a huge taboo and accurate statistics
are not available. However campaigners estimate that at least three quarters of
Lebanese women experience domestic abuse at some point in their lives.
"On the outside
The biggest problem according
to Ms Anani is that domestic violence is not even part of the Lebanese penal
code and marital rape is legalized.
In those rare situations when
domestic violence cases make it to court, they are referred to religious or
so-called 'family courts', where laws often date back to the Ottoman era and
where judges almost always favour men.
"There are thousands of
women in this country who have no one to turn to, " says Ghida Anani.
New laws
This may begin to change, if
the Lebanese parliament votes in favour of a new legislation drafted by a group
of non-governmental organisations.
Campaigners say the biggest
hurdle is already behind them - it took months to get all of religious leaders
in
If adopted the law would be
the first of the kind in the
And not only it would give
civil courts the jurisdiction to deal with domestic violence cases, but it
would also allow for creation of special law enforcement units that deal with
the issue.
"We need it," says Dalal, another photographer from the Behind the Doors show.
Dalal's husband beat and
assaulted her every day, until she finally ran away from him. But he tracked
her down and kidnapped her three daughters. She has heard that they have been
beaten and raped, but she has not seen the girls in years.
For years, she says, police
have refused to help her.
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