Abdo Khal Okaz After many long and painful years, the Himaya (protection) law against all forms of abuse was finally approved. The law consists of 15 articles explaining in detail the meaning of abuse, methods of reporting domestic violence cases and the punishments that abusers may face. I carefully read every article with the purpose of finding out the authority concerned with enforcing this new system but could not find anyone. All the articles make reference to the "concerned authority" without stating exactly who it is. Article 7, which is supposed to name or indicate this "concerned authority," simply makes an ambiguous reference by saying "the concerned authority undertakes its duties according to the seventh article." Does the absence of its name from all articles give the indication that this authority, organization or establishment has not been created yet and therefore it has not been given any name? If this is the case, this means that the baby was born prematurely, especially as the law should be enforced 90 days after it has been published in the official gazette. Are these 90 days enough to spread awareness about domestic violence, its danger and harmful effects on individuals and the stability and cohesion of society? Are they enough to provide attested statistical data about abuse cases in order to develop mechanisms to tackle this disturbing trend and conduct specialized research and studies? Are these 90 days enough to find protection homes for abused individuals? Since the party concerned with protecting the abused is not named, there will be a lot of questions and queries. I wrote previously about the importance of providing protection against all kinds of abuse, whether verbal or physical. I asked every concerned party to fully undertake its role. I said the police would be responsible for arresting the abusers, the Health Ministry for providing treatment to the abused, the Ministry of Social Affairs to provide them with protection homes and the Ministry of Culture and Information to spread awareness about the serious consequences of domestic violence. Protection of individuals against all forms of abuse is a huge responsibility that is fairly new to our society. It requires a lot of work to take the message to all towns, villages, islands and hamlets. The protection against abuse should not be limited to the cities alone, because most domestic violence cases are found outside the big cities. This requires the cooperation of all to implement the law, which should not be left to the "concerned authority" alone. We are overjoyed with the approval of this law, which will help curb cases of domestic violence. We are, however, still calling for a law that would prevent sexual harassment. We will not stop demanding until this law is drafted and approved.
