The Women's Body at Al-Mabarrat Charitable Association held its annual iftar banquet at the Al-Kawthar complex and Al-Sayyeda Khadija Al-Kubra Mabarrat on the airport road, in the presence of women's social, educational, cultural and media figures.
The celebration began with verses from the Wise Remembrance, then an artistic segment presented by girls from Al-Mabarrat, then the speech of the president of the Women's Body at Al-Mabarrat Charitable Association, Hajja Fadia Diab. Afterwards Allama Sayyed Ali Fadlallah delivered a speech in which he pointed at its start to the fact that any imbalance in woman's presence in any field of life is not due to her not possessing the energies and the capacities, so much as to the traditions and customs or the laws that shackle her freedom, for considerations that do not stand up to criticism because of their weakness.
His Eminence affirmed that it is woman's right upon society that it should not impede her from performing her role and that it should open the way for her in that, asking: “Why this bashful presence of woman in the political reality? This making-absent may be understood in countries that restrict woman's freedom doctrinally, whether we agree or not; but why does it happen in Lebanon, which prides itself on its capital of freedom and openness - which, alas, seems to have reached woman in form but not to have reached her in thought, position, effectiveness and leadership, and we do not generalize?”
He continued: “From here we hold that the one concerned with defending women's rights is not woman alone; rather it is the responsibility of the whole of society: it is the responsibility of the jurists if the obstacles are jurisprudential, and the responsibility of the legislators, the politicians and those who occupy positions of decision if the obstacles are legal. For can aware and strong generations be built while the builder of the generations herself continues to feel the limitedness of the role given to her?!”
His Eminence stressed the necessity of improving all the laws and legislation, of developing the jurisprudential judgements related to woman, and of setting customs and traditions right again; and the most important thing remains giving her a sense of protection and security from those who may turn into ravening beasts in their homes - examples of whom we have seen in the recent period, who kill their wives in cold blood.
He affirmed the importance of securing all the means capable of protecting woman, so that her physical weakness is not exploited and her rights are not marginalized in legislation and law, whether in what concerns her divorce, or the custody of her children, or through the absence of sufficient penalties to repel injustice from her.
He called on the decision-makers, those who take up public affairs, the scholars and those in charge of the media to bear responsibility in this field. He added: “Reliance is also placed on the parents' role in achieving protection from violence, by helping both the girl and the young man to understand the marital relationship, to choose well and to face problems.”
He concluded by addressing the women present: “The role that awaits you at this stage is important and great, at a time when challenges convulse our reality and strife is meant to enter all our arenas so as to bring down the positions of strength in us and turn us into sectarian, denominational and nationalist groups that have no power or strength, and that will serve only the enemies of this nation, forming the cradle for all this eliminationist, exclusionary logic, bloody and destructive of the whole human being.”
