Protest mot våldtäktslag: 31 bröllopsklänningar

In December 2016, the Lebanese non-governmental organization, Abaad MENA, launched the campaign "A White Dress Doesn't Cover the Rape" with the aim to abolish Article 522 of the Lebanese Penal Code, which had been labelled as the "rape law." The campaign included street protests, the hashtag #Undress522 in social media and a video of a raped women covered in bruises turned into a bride. A month before the launching of the campaign, the NGO executed a country-wide plan to raise awareness on the article to which only 1% of Lebanese population were discerned of. It is not the first time that Lebanon repeals a law considered to be against human rights. Article 562 of the penal code was amended in 1999, which legalized honor killings whenever a man found his spouse, sister, ascendants or descendants in a situation of unlawful sexual intercourse. Furthermore, on April 1, 2014, the parliament passed a law with the aim to protect women against domestic violence. There are no accurate figures about sexual assaults on women since most women do not report due to the sensitivity of the topic. Within the first few weeks of the campaign, influential figures expressed their support for the movement against Article 522, like the Prime Minister, Saad Hariri, who did so on his twitter account. Despite the fact that Lebanon ratified the 1979 United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and other international treaties such as the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, which supplements the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, the country used to maintain what it has been described as ‘crimes of honor.’ In February 2017, Lebanon abolished Article 522 and declared reexamination of Articles 503 to 521.