SUZAN ABU SAİD

Beirut- The theatre play entitled, “Beit Byout”, which tells the stories of the survivors of domestic violence, was performed in six rural areas of Lebanon as part of the project combating violence against women and girls and the program supporting survivors of violence launched by the Institute of Progressive Women Union.

Awareness-raising campaigns and activities

Ghinwa Ghazi, executive board member of the institute and the coordinator of the program supporting survivors of violence, spoke about the Institute of Progressive Women’s Union and said that the institute was initiated in 1975 to create an equal society. “The aim of the institute is to achieve gender equality and elimination of all forms of discrimination against women in all spheres of life by launching awareness-raising campaigns and activities for women’s social, economic, and political rights. At the beginning, we launched awareness-raising campaigns on social media platforms, including a 16-day campaign including stories of women who suffered and survivors of violence. We encouraged many of them to break the wall of silence and talk about their sufferings during seminars and meetings.”

Stories of two women

We also spoke to Lina Abyad, the director of the Beit Byout, about the theatre performance. “Theatre for me is not only an art, but a platform for expressing ideas so the idea of feminism is very important for me. I have never been subjected to violence in my life. But the story of Manal Assi, who was killed by her husband with a pressure cooker, affected me and I decided to do research on the phenomenon of domestic violence. The name of my first play on domestic violence is ‘This Is Not an Egyptian Film’, which was performed in 2014. I spoke to many survivors of violence for the theatre play entitled, ‘Beit Byout’, which tells the stories of two women, who were killed by male violence.”