In June 2017, the Lebanese Government approved a new electoral law based on proportional representation for the first time in the country’s history, yet it failed in passing important reforms to this law, and most importantly the female quota.
Despite frustration, women and feminist organizations in Lebanon, including Women in Front, continue to gear up to mobilize the public opinion, parliament members and stakeholders in favor of the quota system before the parliamentary elections that are now expected in May 2018.
In this regard, Women in Front conducted a nation-wide advocacy campaign including promotional videos to create awareness among people about the advantages of the women’s quota and its benefits as a temporary measure to increase women’s representation in politics.
The campaign was launched on March 8th 2017, and was conducted in collaboration with the European Women’s Lobby, with the support of the UNDP Lebanese Electoral Assistance Project - Leap office in Lebanon and the “Women in Parliament” coalition which consists of more than 150 NGOs.
The campaign mainly consisted in producing audiovisual materials, concretely 4 videos which obtained more than 500.000 vieux, and reached 47% of total Facebook users in Lebanon. The videos were broadcasted on 7 Lebanese TV channels between 12 and 31 March, on an average of 3 times per day.
The videos were also screened through different trainings that Women in Font held across its different projects which targeted 220 university students, and female partisan and independent candidates. Furthermore, the campaign contributed in changing societal attitudes of at least five Lebanese ministers and key public figures who became in favour of the quota system as a result of the campaign.
This campaign was carried out within the CSO WINS project: “Capacity-building in the Southern Mediterranean to Open policy dialogue and monitoring for Women in Society" which is funded by the European Union.
To learn more about the campaign and to see the produced videos, please check the link below.
This platform is part of the Axis 1 "Strengthening the capacities of equality actors" of the Priority Solidarity Fund "Women for the future in the Mediterranean" funded by the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs and led by the European Institute of the Mediterranean, in the framework of the project “Developing Women's Empowerment” labelled by the Union for the Mediterranean.
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