A Lebanese mother took to social media to beg the Jaafarite Court in Baalbek to give her a permit to see her 15-day old infant, who is in the ICU, after the father took her away.
After going to the Internal Security Forces (ISF) pleading for help, Ghina Al-Bayat was turned down and told that it is not part of their duties.
“I’m still a new mother, and they’re not letting me see my daughter,” Ghina cried in the video she posted on social media. “I’m asking every mother and every person watching this to share my message for the Jaafarite court to let me see my baby girl.”
As the video aggregated a huge public outrage on social media, journalist and head of Dignity NGO Joe Maalouf stepped in. He informed the Public Prosecutor in the Bekaa, Judge Munif Barakat, of the content and details of the case.
Maalouf contacted the leadership of the ISF, which expressed willingness to assist and facilitate the transfer of Ghina’s lawyer, Wissam Al-Mazbouh, from Beirut to Baalbek to begin his legal representation of her case.
Hours later, the head of the Baalbek Sharia Court, Judge Sheikh Ali Al-Mukhal, issued a decision in the presence of the baby’s father, and in agreement with Ghina’s attorney, to hand over the infant to the mother.
Maalouf assured followers of the case on social media that, in case the father refuses to hand over the child, legal measures will be taken against him and he will be prosecuted and arrested.
This is the 2nd case within 10 days in Lebanon that a baby is taking away from the mother by patriarchal entitlement, a mentality empowered by laws and that deems mothers simple vessels of reproduction that could be discarded at will.
It is to note that patriarchalism is a long-dead system that used to serve and defend the absolute power of monarchies in Europe, a political theory born back in the 17th century in England.
Somehow, Lebanon’s religious courts have taken it into a family law that makes fathers absolute kings in their families.
Activism has been long and arduous in the country to change these painfully unfair gender-bias laws that continue to bring so much suffering to so many mothers and their children in Lebanon.