WOMEN, PEACE AND SECURITY RESOURCES: LEBANON
Civil Society and NGO Reports, Papers and Statements | UN Documents | Government Reports | Books, Journals and Articles

Civil Society and NGO Reports, Papers and Statements

Gender and Landmines: From Concept to Practice
Swiss Campaign to Ban Landmines, May 2008
Women, men, girls and boys are affected differently by the threat posed by the presence of landmines in their communities. Gender impacts the likelihood of becoming a victim of landmines, accessing medical care, reintegrating into society after being injured, and accessing mine risk education.

This publication will show that when a gender perspective is applied on mine action, all
actors generally benefit. It will emphasise how little it takes to gender mainstream, and
how gender is doable by small means.

For more information, please click HERE

Of War, Siege, and Lebanon: Women’s voices from the Middle East and South Asia
Women for Women's Human Rights, September 2006
This publication is a collection of leading women activists, academicians and writers in the Middle East and South Asia, depicting their reactions to the wars and the increasing militarism in the Middle East as well as their analysis of their impact on women activists’ efforts to promote gender equality, human rights and democracy.

For the full publication, please click HERE

Amesty International Annual Report: 2004
Amnesty International, 2004
In this annual report, Amnesty examines women's rights and other human rights violations in the republic of Lebanon.

Lebanon: Torture and ill-treatment of women in pre-trial detention: a culture of acquiescence
Amnesty International, 21 August 2001
Women arrested in Lebanon risk torture and ill-treatment at the hands of law enforcement institutions especially during pre-trial detention. Widespread torture or other ill-treatment of women detainees, especially those accused of major criminal offences, takes place in police stations. Women in pre-trial detention are routinely held in incommunicado detention and coerced to confess guilt or testify against themselves at a time when they lack the protection of the law. Women accused of political offences have also been tortured or ill-treated. This report calls for action by the international community and the lebanese government.

Working Paper II: Women and Other War-Affected Groups in Post-War Lebanon
International Labor Organization (ILO), Recovery and Reconstruction Department, Geneva, March 2001
This report on Lebanon examines the gender impact of the conflict in the country from 1975 to 1990. It observes that the conflict has accentuated poverty, unemployment, low wages and unequal income distribution which have put the weight of reconstruction of the country on those who can least bear it. Women have been more adversely affected by the conflict, which also contributed to changes in gender relations and differences between men and women, in their post-war activities and survival strategies. The author stresses the importance of women's groups in reconstruction efforts and in seeking redress to some of the concerns of women in post-conflict Lebanon. The impact of other factors -- legal, cultural and religious -- is also highlighted.

NGO Report on the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)
Executive Summary of Second Report on CEDAW
Women's Rights Monitor, Draft of Initial Report, March 2000; Executive Summary, September 2000

Persona Non Grata : The Expulsion of Civilians from Israeli-Occupied Lebanon
Human Right Watch, July 1999
This report examines the expulsion and other forcible transfers of Lebanese civilians from Israeli-occupied Lebanon, practices that violate international humanitarian law and are grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions. These measures have been carried out by Israel's local auxiliary militia, known as the South Lebanon Army (SLA), in the occupied Lebanese territory. The use of expulsion as a weapon to punish the civilian population in the occupied zone has received scant attention in Israel and internationally during the two decades that it has quietly made a shambles of the lives of the men, women, and children forced to leave their homes and communities. Human Rights Watch documented cases of individuals and entire families who have been collectively punished by being expelled for the acts or suspected activities of their relatives.

Lebanon: Human Rights Developents and Violations
Amnesty International, 8 October 1997
This report is the result of Amnesty International's monitoring of human rights developments and violations since 1990. It is also the outcome of Amnesty International's visits to Lebanon during 1996 and 1997, which included meetings with government officials and NGOs.
This report also incorporates concerns raised in a briefing regarding the human rights situation in Lebanon submitted to the 59th Session of the Human Rights Committee (the body of independent experts which monitors the implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights by the State parties) which considered Lebanon's second report in April 1997. A copy of this briefing was sent to the Lebanese authorities and Lebanon's representative at the UN.

An Alliance Beyond the Law: Enforced Disappearances in Lebanon
Human Rights Watch, 1 May 1997
An unknown number of Lebanese citizens and stateless Palestinians are imprisoned in Syria: some of them “disappeared” in Lebanon as long ago as the 1980s. In two cases we documented, Palestinian families learned only recently through information brought to them by released prisoners, that their loved ones may still be alive and in Syrian custody. The problem, unfortunately, not only involves past abuses but also extends to current practice. Lebanese citizens and stateless Palestinians continue to disappear in Lebanon, taken into custody there by Syrian security forces and then transferred to and detained in Syria, perpetuating a climate of fear.

UN Documents

United Nations Peacekeeping Operation (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon - UNIFIL)
UNIFIL was created in 1978 to confirm Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, restore the international peace and security, and help the Lebanese Government restore its effective authority in the area. UNIFIL Mandate, UNIFIL Homepage

Evaluating the Status of Lebanese Women in Light of the Beijing Platform for Action (UNIFEM)
UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), 16 January 2003
This pioneer study that aims to analyze the twelve critical areas of concern at the Beijing Platform for Action. The study sheds light on the progress made in Lebanese society and calls for further investigation on regression in the status of women. To order this publication please contact: UNIFEM Arab States Regional Office, P.O. Box 830896 Amman, Jordan 11183, Tel: + 962 6 567-8586/7, E-mail: amman@unifem.org.jo

Integration of the Human Rights of Women and the Gender Perspective: Violence Against Women
Economic and Social Council, Commission on Human Rights, 58th Session, 28 January 2002

The Situation of Children and Women in Lebanon
UNICEF Beirut and the Government of Lebanon, 1995
For the past couple of years, Lebanon has been going through a transitional period, moving from a conflict period towards political and economic recovery. The aim of this situation analysis is to identify and to highlight social problems pertaining to women and children in post-war Lebanon and provide suggestions and recommend-ations which will guide UNICEF and the government to focus on areas in need of special attention and on priority problems of women and children and then proceed into formulating strategies to address the causes of these problems. The analysis is UNICEF's initial step towards the production of its five-year programme of coordination and cooperation with the Lebanese government which will aim at alleviating and addressing the many remaining social problems of Lebanese women and children.

Government Reports

The Beijing Platform for Action, in paragraph 297. called on all governments to develop implementation strategies or plans of action for the Platform. The Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW) asked all UN Member States to supply copies of these strategies/plans of action: Lebanese National Action Plan for 1997 - 2000 provided to the Division for the Advancement of Women by the Lebanese Government.

Lebanese Government's response to DAW's questionnare on the Implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action (In Arabic)

Lebanon has not ratified CEDAW: Reservations by the Lebanese government about CEDAW


Books, Journals and Articles

All publications found in Al-Raida, quarterly English-language journal
Institute for Women's Studies in the Arab World, American University, Beirut, Lebanon

On Combatting Violence Against Women: The Performance of Lebanese Non-Governmental Organizations
Azza Sharara Beydoun. Al-Raida. Volume XIX, Nos. 97- 98, Spring/Summer 2002
This paper profiles two non- governmental organizations on opposite sides of a bipolar continuum. One is a religious Muslim organization, and the other is civic and secular. They share the same coordinates of time and place (i.e. Lebanon today) but adopt opposite approaches to violence against women. The first organization craves to restore the first Islamic era and anchors its performance in a historic cultural background of handling women’s issues in general, and violence against women in specific. In contrast, the second organization views itself within a global context, from which it directly derives its reference frameworks and performance methodology (after adapting these frameworks to local social culture). Unlike the first organization, the second is futuristic; i. e., it is most probably based on a model to which non- governmental organizations in Lebanon increasingly aspire to reach.

Women and War in Lebanon
Lamia Rustum Shahadeh. (Ed). Miami: University Press of Florida, 1999

Leaving Beirut: Women and the Wars Within
M. Ghoussoub. London: Saqi Books, 1998

Communal Violence, Civil War and Foreign Occupation: Women in Lebanon
Kristen Schulze, Martin Stokes, and Colin Campbell. Rick Wilford and Robert Miller (Eds.) Women, Ethnicity and Nationalism: The Politics of Transition. London: Routledge, 1998

Women of Lebanon: Interviews with Champions for Peace
Nelda LaTeef. McFarland and Company, 1997

The Effects of War on Women in Lebanon
Julinda Abu-Nasr. Suha Sabbah. (Ed.). Arab Women Between Defiance and Restraint. New York: Olive Branch Press, 1996