Women of Libya: Increase in 'family murder' as society protects perpetrators

The image of a mother standing between the coffins of her two daughters who were shot dead by their father expresses the tragic and violent reality of women in Libya.

While the cycle of armed violence is claiming the lives of Libyan men, women and children, it is Libyan women who pay the highest price, whether in hotbeds of tension and armed conflict or even in safe places. Several Libyan cities this July witnessed horrific killings of Libyan women by family fire, amid government absence and societal silence.

The hashtags #We_demand_retribution and #There_is_no_justification_for_killing have occupied social media in Libya after the serial murders that targeted Libyan women in their homes.

This was considered by observers as evidence that domestic violence has reached its maximum levels and women have been robbed of their lives in the name of social guardianship that society grants to males and reinforces in the name of customs and traditions.

July is the month of crimes against women

This July witnessed a series of horrific crimes committed in different parts of the country. Libya recorded about seven separate domestic violence crimes in just 15 days, coinciding with the Eid al-Adha holiday during the month, with a crime rate of every two days, amid fears of impunity for the perpetrators.

Hajar Al-Fakhri was shot dead in Ain Zara in Tripoli by her brother, who has not been arrested until now, while Maram Ahmeed, her mother and her father were shot dead by her cousin after she refused to marry him.

In Benghazi, two sisters, Yasmina and Bushra Al-Taweer, were shot dead by their father and brother, who fled for several weeks before they were arrested by the security services. Salwa Arhaim also lost her life, stabbed in the neck with a knife by her brother.

The July massacres also included Aisha Al-Futaisi in the city of Zliten, who was killed by being burned alive by her husband and his brothers.

As for the conclusion of the series of blood that Libyan women were subjected to this month, the young woman Heba Moftah and her father were shot in the city of Al-Bayda, east of Benghazi, by a young man who proposed to her and she rejected him, inflicting severe injuries to her abdominal area.

Conflicting numbers and statistics

Muhammad Balshahr, a psychologist and member of the support team for the hotline 1417 dedicated to helping women, said in a television interview that the psychological counseling team of the hotline received about 14,500 thousand calls during 2021 only, 400 of whom were from women who had been subjected to violence. In the first six months of 2022, the project team received about 18,000 calls, 24% of whom were abused women.

The Director of the Women's Office at the National Institution for Human Rights, Zahia Al-Manfi, revealed to Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper that women's and human rights organizations monitored the killing of 50 women in incidents of domestic violence during the period from 2020 to July 2022. This made the recent crimes against women seem almost regular.

However, according to the “Libya Feminists” Facebook page that documents violence against women in Libya, despite the numerous killings, there are no official statistics on the number of victims in Libya.

The page explained that the names monitored by some activists amounted to about 74 victims in various parts of Libya, all of whom were killed as a result of domestic violence, especially in light of the division of Libyan institutions and the absence of an appropriate climate for the work of human rights organizations.

Community action and demands for a solution

Social network platforms were filled with numerous demands for retribution and condemnations from local human rights organizations and activists.

Some Libyan human rights defenders believed that the scenes of the killing of these women summarize the suffering of women throughout Libya. They emphasized that the officials' attention is focused only on the struggle for power and wealth, without paying attention to the increasing rates of violence against women and discussing its causes and treatment. They also demanded the amendment of laws to protect women and the speedy restoration of the Libyan state.

The head of the Benghazi Civil Society Commission, Mabrouka Baltamar, called on the Libyan parliament to expedite the issuance of a law to combat violence against women. She pointed out that Libyan women face the worst type of violence, domestic violence, which makes them alone and without any support.

In the same context, the Women and Child Affairs Committee in the House of Representatives announced that it “is working very seriously on issuing a law criminalizing violence against women of all kinds and forms in the near future.”

The Ministry of Women's Affairs in the Government of National Unity also expressed its “grave concern over the high frequency of domestic and societal violence against women” and called on “the competent authorities to take the necessary strict legal measures to stop this nightmare, which threatens the security and safety of female citizens and explicitly violates their rights to life.”

The law does not protect

A number of women had repeatedly resorted to the police and documented in official statements that they had been threatened without any significant interference from the concerned authorities. In most cases, the perpetrator escapes punishment by protecting custom and tribe or by not applying the law, especially since most murder cases are promoted as “honor-related crimes” or “kinship crimes”.

Article 375 of the Libyan Penal Code stipulates the penalty of imprisonment for anyone who was surprised to see his wife, daughter, sister, or mother in the act of adultery or in the case of illegal intercourse, in the event of killing her or her partner, or both of them.

In the event that the act results in serious harm to the aforementioned, the penalty shall not exceed two years, and simple harm shall not be punished in such circumstances.

But what are the movements on the ground? How do the active forces deal with the level of violence against women in Libya? And how can the law stop these crimes?

Speaking to Jusoor Post, Libyan lawyer and human rights activist Abeer Ahmed said, “It is necessary to amend the law and update it with what the stage requires.”

“In general, the real problem facing the legislation in force is the implementation and its mechanism. It is illogical to hold all legislations responsible, amid the inability of the concerned authorities to implement these legislations,” she added.

“Most of the crimes that occurred during the last period are related to the crimes of kin, as the perpetrator is a first-degree relative with the victim, either a father, a brother, or a husband,” Abeer continued.

“In Libya, the penalty for honor crimes, in which custom intervenes to protect men, is reduced if they commit murder. Here the legislation becomes flawed and unable to enforce the required retribution,” she added.

The human rights activist called for “the necessity of legislative intervention and amending the legislative texts from their origin, which is the most complicated matter amid the legislative confusion that Libya is going through.”

On the other hand, the reality in Libya resulting from the insecurity and the abundance of weapons outside the authority of the state reinforces the high rate of violence between individuals, which in turn targets the most vulnerable groups represented by women and children.

The Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime ranked Libya fourth in the Arab world, and twenty-first globally, among the countries with the highest levels of organized crime.

Libya is ranked last in the world in terms of the degree of resilience against organized crime, which reflects the state's inability to confront crime.

Professor of Criminal Law at the University of Benghazi, Ahlam Al-Nahwi, said in her analysis of the observed causes of domestic violence during July, “One of the causes of crimes in the first place is the lack of awareness and culture of society, the spread of drugs and weapons, and the poor economic conditions. In addition to this is the great control of customs on societies, as well as the lack of strict laws or their implementation.”

In her interview with Jusoor Post, she added, “The future will be worse if we do not pay attention to the roots of the problem.”

“The institutional monitoring culture in Libya is completely missing, which hinders the existence of any accurate statistics. The statistics are dealt with confidentially in the Libyan courts, which hinders the work of the organizations concerned,” A-Nahwi explained.

“Amid the number of crimes that women were subjected to during July, the effort made by the concerned authorities did not go beyond statements and condemnations, without any significant arrests of the perpetrators or serious steps to amend laws,” she said.

The question remains, according to Al-Nahwi, “Will we see a serious stance on the escalating violence, or will condemnations remain the only means of expression?”