First Lady Nehmat Aoun hosts national meeting to back women’s quota law ahead of parliamentary elections

Lebanon’s National Commission for Lebanese Women, chaired by First Lady Nehmat Aoun, held a national meeting in support of a proposed women’s quota law ahead of the upcoming parliamentary elections.

The meeting aimed to unify the efforts of various stakeholders to enhance women’s participation in decision-making positions and to support a unified draft law ensuring the adoption of a women’s quota in the next parliamentary elections. 

It falls within the commission’s coordinating role with civil society organizations and its joint efforts to discuss the proposed unified version of the quota law.

In a speech, First Lady Nehmat Aoun stressed that “collaborative work between state institutions, civil society organizations, international organizations, and experts is the only path to achieving tangible progress and turning demands into reality.”

She noted that no single party can bring about change on its own, but that unifying efforts can transform policies into laws, and laws into lived reality.

“Today, we extend our hand to all national and international partners to rally around the quota law proposal, as a practical and temporary step to remove structural barriers to women’s participation,” Aoun said, adding that it should serve as a foundation for a broader goal: full equality in representation across all decision-making positions.

She concluded by saying that “this meeting is not merely a gathering; it marks a new launch in a journey of struggle and advocacy for genuine citizenship and gender equality, and for the Lebanon we aspire to—a just, inclusive state built on partnership between women and men.”