After days of news of violence committed by men against women this month across the region, the Lebanese illustrator Nourie Flayhan decided to creatively pay tribute to the victims.
The Dubai-based artist uploaded a series of portraits on Instagram, taking a stand as such and voicing the tragic crimes committed against them.
The Lebanese illustrator is originally inspired by women’s stories and rights to create her pieces of art. This time, she did not hesitate to express her anger at the killing of women.
Here are the portraits:
Nourie Flayhan first decided to pay tribute to 21-years-old Nira Ashraf, a student at Mansoura University in Egypt, who was tragically murdered on June 20, 2022.
On June 23, Iman Rashid, also 21 years old, was gunned down on the campus of the Applied Science Private University in Amman, Jordan.
A day after that incident, Lubna Mansour, a graduate of Jordan’s University of Science and Technology, was tragically stabbed by her husband on June 24, 2022, in the UAE.
However, the tragic incidents towards women did not end there, as days later, the Egyptian Media Figure, Shaima Gamal, was found murdered by her husband.
Femicide, which is the killing of women and girls, is a gender-oriented hate crime that tends to go unpunished or barely punished in Lebanon and the region when it involves a husband or a family member.
Organizations like KAFA and Abaad in Lebanon continue to struggle with cases they bring to court for justice as they fight for women’s protection.
When the perpetrator is the victim’s “legal guardian” – such as the husband – the law has loopholes that practically find justifications for the husband’s crime.
