In late 2020, Lebanon finally passed a law making sexual harassment a crime. But while the landmark legislation, called Law 205, is considered a step forward, human rights groups say it fails to meet international standards and protect women who dare to speak up.
Lara* was sleeping at home at 4am when she heard a knock on her door.
“I woke up frightened, and had no idea who was at my door in the middle of the night,” she said. “I asked, ‘Who is it?’ from behind the closed door. Marwan Habib, who was a neighbour at the time, responded, asking if he could sleep at my place since he had lost his keys.”
“I refused and asked him to leave, but he wouldn’t. I told him I would report him but he laughed, telling me to relax and spend the night with him. Never in my life have I felt this humiliated and since then, a part of me, [my sense of security] was shattered,” she added.
Lara* is one of many women who fell victim to Habib. In late 2019, more than 50 women reported being harassed by him and one even said she was raped. In 2020, Karim Majbour, a Lebanese lawyer, filed a lawsuit against him.
“The things Habib has done would have landed him in prison for years. A woman on television even reported that he raped her. The problem isn’t that the system couldn’t convict him – it didn’t want to,” Majbour told FRANCE 24.
“Since in Lebanon a harasser can escape punishment, survivors had to wait for another country to punish him in order to feel they’ve earned some justice,” he added, citing Habib’s conviction earlier this month in Miami, Florida, for attempting to sexually assault a woman in her own hotel room.
The Miami police report stated that the defendant was known to “pursue females in order to have sex or date them, even after they advised him to stop doing so on multiple occasions.”
Habib is being held without bond due to an…
Source : france24
