How Sectarianism Negatively Influences Women’s Access to Welfare Services in Lebanon

Lebanon’s welfare system is fragmented and poorly regulated with little government oversight over issues relating to personal status, which religious courts rather than civil bodies adjudicate over.^[i] Lebanon’s dependence on its fifteen personal status laws as determined by each religious sect has put women at varying levels of disadvantage regarding issues of ‘asset accumulation, child custody, alimony, and child support’.^[ii] Without a legal framework for providing social assistance mechanisms, welfare services depend on the private sector and faith-based organisations (FBOs), which operate under few legal safeguards.

Although Article 7 of Lebanon’s 1926 Constitution protects the equality of all under the law, it lacks any article prohibiting discrimination based on sex. This is in violation of Article 2(a) of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), despite Lebanon’s ratification of the document with reservations in 1997.^[iii] Articles 9 and 10 of the Constitution, granting each of Lebanon’s religious groups the right to administer the affairs of its members, have given way to the discrimination of women more broadly speaking, but also in terms of the unequal access to welfare between women belonging to different religious sects.^[iv] International bodies such as CEDAW have urged Lebanon to ‘adopt a unified personal status code’ as ‘the preservation of multiple legal systems is in itself discriminatory…’^[v]

The Role of Religious Courts

Although the private sector has been essential in providing welfare services to women, they have, in the long term, compromised ideas of civic belonging and entrenched existing sectarian divisions in the nation. International recommendations have for long stressed the need for a unified civil code, as the perpetuation of fragmented identities ‘may inhibit efforts to establish broader, more universalistic public welfare functions’.^[vi] Discrepancies in women’s access to ‘health, education, and social safety were even more glaring when the main service providers were NGOs’, as Lina Abou-Habib has stressed, thereby hindering ‘gendered social entitlement and active citizenship’.^[vii]

Because of the centrality of religion to Lebanese public and private life, citizens tend to look to leaders of their religious communities rather than to the state for social protection. Sectarian groups and FBOs are often tied to political agendas as a result of Lebanon’s confessional political organisation. Influenced by clientelism, those having sworn allegiance to certain sectarian groups have been shown to benefit from welfare provisions more than those who did not. Camett’s in-depth interviews with both elites and non-elites revealed that limited forms of material aid, such as cash handouts, are largely distributed as a means to reward loyal followers rather than allocating these resources based on need.^[viii] Consequently, access to welfare is not seen as a universal right, but a ‘privilege to be earned’ by seeking and securing resources from ‘public and religious institutions, political parties, and political figures.’^[ix]

In 2016, a feminist and secular Lebanese NGO, KAFA, and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) conducted a study on the accessibility of justice for victims of family violence. Around a third of interviewees believed that ‘turning to a family member to address violence was a better option than filing a legal complaint’.^[x] Given the complete or partial privatisation of religious courts, interviewed women cited ‘procedural obstacles, high fees, protracted lawsuits, and [a] lack of legal and material assistance during legal proceedings’ as barriers.^[xi] Additionally, 65% of interviewees believed that ‘religious courts did not reach fair results’, of which a further 90% viewed courts as ‘corrupt’.^[xii]

A study published by Human Rights Watch in 2015 revealed that judges of religious courts do not require a nationally accredited law degree to qualify. In addition, women—with the exception of members of the Evangelical and Armenian Orthodox confessions—are not eligible by default.^[xiii] As judges’ juridical positions are conflated with clerical ones, religious courts in Lebanon technically violate Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which states that all citizens should have the right to an ‘independent and impartial tribunal’.^[xiv] Although there exist forms of legal oversight, they have not been respected or have been inactive. All personal status law lawyers interviewed by Human Rights Watch agreed that this inefficiency stems from oversight bodies being almost entirely composed of clerics and confessional judges, who prioritise the preservation of their own sect’s reputation.^[xv] The close ties between sectarian political and religious identities have therefore hindered women’s access to a fair trial, and effectively eroded protective provisions of neutral political bodies when dealing with issues relating to personal status.

Women’s Limited Economic and Political Participation

Lebanon’s personal status laws have had a detrimental impact on women’s political and economic participation too. According to the World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap report published in 2020, Lebanon has one of the highest overall gender gaps in the world (ranking 145th out of 153 countries) and one of the world’s lowest rates for female labour market participation.^[xvi]

Lebanon’s economy has been gravely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the international economic fallout from the Russia-Ukraine war, and ongoing armed conflicts with Israel. Structural gender discrimination has exacerbated these challenges, resulting in higher unemployment rates among women and a surge in gender-based violence (GBV).^[xvii]

Although several of Lebanon’s governments since 2008 have reiterated their commitment to enforcing CEDAW regulations concerning women in ‘all financial, economic, social and political areas’, little has been done to implement those recommendations.^[xviii] Existing labour laws tend to neglect women’s welfare benefits such as maternity leave and access to credit facilities, with the ‘dispersion of society’s decision-making components for gender policies’ hindering reforms, as the United Nations Economic and Social Commission (UNESCO) has highlighted.^[xix]

Human Rights Watch and UNESCO also argued that the effects of personal status laws have significantly hindered women’s ability to achieve financial independence. Whereas non-Muslim women are entitled to equal rights of inheritance as their male counterparts, Muslim Ja’fari law states that ‘if the deceased is succeeded by male and female children, the males inherit twice the share’.^[xx]

There have only been a few instances of altering certain personal status laws as of 2021—for example, the Druze sect has shifted to consider women as entitled to inheritance even if the deceased does not have a male heir.^[xxi]

Divorce regulations remain similarly restrictive, with divorce being an exclusive right of men in Sunni and Shia Muslim communities.^[xxii] Additionally, the ‘absence of any religious or civil Law in Lebanon valuing women’s non-monetary contributions to the marriage at the time of termination—including household and family care, lost economic opportunity, and support for the husband’s career goals—contributes to discrimination’, as Human Rights Watch has highlighted.^[xxiii] In rejecting the financial and non-financial contributions of women within a marriage, women are effectively economically sanctioned for seeking divorce.^[xxiv] This, combined with unequal inheritance laws, has meant that women have, as maintained by UNESCO in 2022, ‘fewer assets and/or limited land ownership, which, in turn, means that they may have fewer opportunities than men to access financial institutions, obtain approval for bank loans, and cultivate financial resources’.^[xxv]

Institutionalised patriarchal norms have fostered the perception that women’s roles are limited to the household rather than encompassing political leadership and participation. Lebanon features one of the world’s lowest rates of female political participation, with only 157 women candidates registered and eight elected to parliamentary seats in the country’s 2022 parliamentary elections.^[xxvi] Cultural and legal frameworks diminish women’s roles in society, and perpetuate their exclusion from leadership and decision-making positions.

The perceived importance of women’s political roles has been further diminished by their inability, to pass their nationality on to their children. As Lina Khatib has argued, such restrictions negatively affect women’s recognition ‘as full-fledged citizens’.^[xxvii] Although nationality laws have been amended in 2021 to allow ‘non-Lebanese individuals with a Lebanese mother or married to a Lebanese citizen to work in professions managed by Lebanese syndicates, these individuals are denied the right to work in positions requiring a membership of these syndicates, thereby limiting their ability to practice certain professions.^[xxviii] The Beirut Bar Association and the Tripoli Bar Association, for example, mandate that practicing lawyers must have held Lebanese citizenship for a minimum of ten years.^[xxix]

Potential Improvements to the Legal System

A number of international policy recommendations have sought to improve personal status laws in Lebanon for the benefit of gender equality over the years.

The creation of a mandatory civil code and the abolition of personal status laws are among these recommendations. As such moves would certainly be opposed by religious leaders, the Ministry of Women’s Affairs in Lebanon has, instead, suggested the creation of a ‘voluntary civil status code as an alternative to religious codes’, with certain provisions made compulsory across all sects, in order to align with Lebanon’s international human rights obligations.^[xxx]

If the provisions of international treaties collide with ordinary law—religious or civil—international conventions should override domestic regulations as enshrined in Article 2 of Lebanon’s Code of Civil Procedure.^[xxxi] ‘Any personal status law not in compliance with Lebanon’s constitution or international human rights obligations should be amended before being approved by parliament’, as Human Rights Watch has contended.^[xxxii]

Furthermore, ‘to ensure judgments are non-discriminatory’, a monitoring mechanism should be created ‘to conduct oversight over personal status court proceedings’ in compliance with the constitution and Lebanon’s international human rights obligations This would require repealing Decree 53 of March 30, 1939, which exempts Muslims from the provisions of Decree 60LR that mandate religious confessions to submit their laws and procedures for parliamentary ratification after ensuring their alignment with the Lebanese constitution.^[xxxiii]

While Law No. 293 (2014) provides legal protections against domestic violence, and Law No. 205 (2020) criminalises sexual harassment, marking important progress in addressing gender-based discrimination, their full implementation has been obstructed by jurisdictional disputes between civil and religious courts.^[xxxiv] To ensure these laws are effectively enforced, civil court rulings should take precedence over religious court decisions in cases of conflict.

In order to raise standards in the legal profession, it was suggested that Lebanon should ‘establish minimum education and training requirements for judges in religious courts. Requiring judges in religious courts to obtain a law license and judicial training as a basic condition for appointment and incorporate them in the Ministry of Justice’s Academy of Judges’, as recommended by Human Rights Watch too^[xxxv], is perhaps the most evident recommendation that Lebanon has received.

Although Lebanon has ratified CEDAW, it maintains reservations to Article 9, which addresses the elimination of discriminatory laws preventing women from transferring their nationality to their children. To ensure gender equality in the full sense of civil rights, Lebanon should remove these reservations in alignment with the EU4WE’s recommendation, granting women equal rights in matters of nationality.^[xxxvi] This is as important for gender equality as for the civil-political cohesion of the nation.

To further support women, an equitable division of property between spouses should be introduced upon the dissolution of marriage, while the concept of marital property should be introduced within religious courts.^[xxxvii] Religious courts should also rule on maintenance and compensation, taking into account women’s financial and non-financial contributions to a marriage, such as household and family care, and lost economic opportunities.^[xxxviii] Combined with appropriate oversight mechanisms, these measures would help ensure fair spousal maintenance rulings and reduce women’s economic vulnerability after marriage.

Finally, existing laws in GBV are hindered by weak implementation mechanisms for GBV survivors, including inadequate referral and support systems.^[xxxix] There remains a critical need for robust enforcement measures within both public and private institutions, including reliable reporting channels, preventative measures, and rehabilitation services^[xl] to meaningfully improve in this policy area.

The Way Forward

Lebanon’s reliance on personal status laws has embedded discrimination and hindered women’s access to just and neutral legal processes, economic opportunities, and political participation. Existing constitutional and legal frameworks remain insufficient to safeguard women’s access to welfare services effectively.

A unified civil code, paired with institutional reforms such as judicial supervision, greater legal protections, and the elimination of prejudicial laws, are needed to address these structural barriers. Reinforcing civil court authority, executing gender-sensitive reforms, and promoting equal citizenship are vital to dismantling deep-seated patriarchal norms and practices. By applying such policies, Lebanon can advance toward ensuring justice, equity, and empowerment for all its citizens, regardless of gender or sectarian association.