McDermid 1

Ruby McDermid

SUPA WRT

Mrs. Mckeever

24 May 2024

An Assessment of the “Undress 522” and ABBAD’s Campaign

As you stroll along Beirut's famous seafront, among the crowed corniche and crashing

waves, a striking art installation catches your eye: “Undress 522” by Lebanese artist Mireille

Honein. The powerful piece immediately grabs your attention and you look around to see you're

not the only one moved by its visual and emotional art. Thirty-one wedding dresses composed of

layers of translucent, paper material hung from nooses, move gently in the wind, conjuring a

sense of despair for the young women the dresses are meant to cover. The installation, in its

ghostly look, conveys a haunting reminder of Lebanese Penal Code 522, which allows rapists to

escape punishment if they marry their victims. Surrounding the installation, passersby pause,

some in quiet examination and others discussing the artwork's significance. Activists are ready to

gather support from the public through signatures on their petition to abolish Article 522. The

atmosphere is charged with a sense of reflection and newfound awareness. The installation is not

only a piece of art but also a tool to help people learn about the terrible Lebanese penal codes.

Many of the features of the art installation were deliberate when Honein was designing it.

She chose to set up the installation on Beirut's famous seafront, as its consistently crowded

location reaches the largest number of viewers. The number of dresses in the installation was

intended to point toward the idea that each day of the month a woman is raped and forced to

marry her rapist. Lastly, the material used in the composition of the dresses was a conscious

choice, as the paper was supposed to “expose the "ephemeral" nature of matrimony and the
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legality that surrounds it” (Kasana). Each characteristic was put in place to bring attention to the

neglected subject of rape.

An art installation is not the first thing that comes to mind when attempting to influence

Lebanon’s parliamentary committee to have Legislation 522 abolished. And it is not the only

tactic employed by the ABBAD, a UN ECOSOC-accredited resource Centre for Gender

Equality. However, it is with the art installation that ABBAD’s campaign to abolish Lebanese

penal code 522 falls under the category of cultural resistance. According to Stephen Duncombe,

a Professor at the Gallatin School and the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication of

New York University, cultural resistance is “culture that is used, consciously or unconsciously,

effectively or not, to resist and/or change the dominant political, economic and/or social

structure” (Duncombe 135). Culture in this sense is a very elastic term; it can range from art to

music to fashion. I’d like to point to popular events, such as the Zoot Suit Riots and the punk

movement of the 70s, to exemplify cultural resistance, as you can see culture has been a tool to

express dissatisfaction with mainstream narratives throughout history. The Zoot Riots started as

a result of the Mexican American youth wearing oversized suits to express identity when war-

time rationing of fabric was taking place. People involved in the punk movement of the 70s used

music to reject modern ideals and accept people deemed different in society. And you can see

through its continued usage that this form of activism is effective, as it brings together

marginalized groups to critique power structures and promote political, economic, and social

change.

In Lebanon, women have a long history of organizing for social sustainability, similar to

their counterparts worldwide. In 1996, Lebanon ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All

Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), however, due to the Lebanese

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government's reservations on numerous articles, the ratification remained incomplete. These

reservations perpetuate discrimination against women in areas such as family issues, nationality,

marriage, divorce, and inheritance. The government's reluctance to fully adopt CEDAW stems

from the “constitutional agreement to delegate personal status laws to sect-specific religious

courts,” which often enforce gender-discriminatory rules (Maalouf). One of the discriminating

articles that existed and remained the same when the Lebanese government ratified CEDAW was

article 522 from the Lebanese penal code. The article allowed men convicted of sexual assault,

abduction, or statutory rape to evade a minimum penalty of five years of hard labor if they

provided a valid marriage contract with the victim. In Lebanon, since rape is considered legal

within marriage, article 522 served as a means of escape for rapists to avoid punishment. On

December 7th, 2016, Lebanon’s Parliamentary Committee for Administration and Justice

announced their proposal to repeal Article 522, kick-starting ABBAD’s national campaign "A

White Dress Does Not Cover the Rape."

ABBAD saw penal code 522 as a blatant discrimination against women and girls. In

response, they launched a series of creative advocacy activities aimed at repealing Article 522

and tackling the lack of knowledge surrounding it. Some of these actions included having

activists “dressed in white sheets with slogans such as ‘Rape is a Crime. Abolish 522!’” walk in

the Beirut Marathon, and organizing “sit-ins in front of the Committee of Administration and

Justice when it was drafting the law abolishing article 522 to be sent to the Parliament” (Anani).

But taking a step further, ABBAD partnered with renowned, Lebanese artist Mireille Honein to

set up “Undress 522,” an art installation that asserts the right of women survivors to reject

marriage to their rapists, combats stigma, and emphasizes that rape is a crime that should be

punished without legitimizing it through forced marriages. An art installation was a crucial
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addition to the traditional campaigning of ABBAD’s efforts to abolish Lebanese Penal Code 522,

as it evoked an emotional appeal in the viewers that public mobilization such as sit-ins and

marathons lacked. “Undress 522,” a political and social statement against an outdated system

that contributes to the violence and discrimination of women, effectively sensitized the public to

penal code 522 and fostered a sense of sadness for future victims of the rape law if the code was

not abolished.

Art is an effective means of resistance as it is a powerful tactic in cultivating empathy in

audiences. As Rungwe Kingdon, a co-founder of a nonprofit sculpture foundation in Uganda,

puts it, “It is the directness of art, its short circuit to the emotional core of our beings, that makes

it so powerful a means of communication and, thus, of effecting change” (Wilcox). Whether

through an art installation, song, or poetry, experiencing something through art can have a much

stronger impact than receiving the same message through purely informational means. Therefore,

if the goal of a certain culture or group is to move someone to act, they need to convey their

belief or custom in a way that resonates on a more visceral level. When sensitizing the public to

Lebanese penal code 522, the art installation not only informed the public about the code but it

also highlighted how violently it can affect a woman's life, appealing to the audience’s sense of

injustice. The wedding dresses are used as a symbol of the unjust marriage coerced by Article

522. Rape can harm women’s sexual and reproductive health and leave lasting psychological

trauma, so having the loophole for rapists in the law dismisses rape as a crime and permanently

condemns a victim’s life. Honein wants the viewers to experience the sadness of the fact that

these victims are forced to live with their perpetrators against their will in an environment that

cultivates nothing but negativity, despair, and hatred.

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Supporters of Article 522 argue that the marriage will salvage the honor of the woman

and her family. Rothna Begum, a women’s rights researcher for the Middle East and North

Africa at Human Rights Watch, told Al Jazeera “Girls or women who have been raped,

especially if she’s a virgin, are then considered unmarriageable. So, lawmakers tend to feel that

providing her the opportunity to marry her rapist is helping to protect her” (Alabaster). Getting

the parliamentary committee to sign off on the proposal to repeal the law doesn’t address the fact

that these values are entrenched in society and family. Fortunately, Honein’s art installation is a

step toward social change because its 31 dresses, representing the 31 days in a month that a

woman can be compelled to marry her rapist, highlights how often rape occurs. In regions such

as Lebanon, the idea of rape is such a taboo topic that the victim is often blamed for causing the

incident; people connect the tragic event to shame on the victim’s family. Honein’s installation

intends to make people understand that rape is a part of everyday society and to impose laws and

unjust standards upon someone that has been raped is unfair. Reducing the social stigma

surrounding rape starts with an overhaul of sexual education across the Middle East and

“Undress 522” can be considered one of those educational tools. Once society recognizes rape is

a crime and women have sexual autonomy, there will be no need to “protect” the victims

anymore, then allowing women to regain control of their married life. The art installation is not

going to immediately prevent families from pressuring their daughters into accepting offers of

marriage from the rapist. Still, it will forever remind them that they are sentencing their daughter

to a life-long rape.

Although “Undress 522” delivered its goal to sensitize the public on Article 522, the

cultural resistance fails to address the bigger issue of women’s rights. In some way, the art

installation was just a “haven in a heartless world” (Himely and Fitzsimmons 135). It created a
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sanctuary where an ideal society lives and problems vanish, but outside nothing changed at all.

The art installation enlightened people about the effect of penal code 522 on young women, yet it

shielded them from witnessing the physical abuse they will be put through in marriage to their

rapist and understanding the psychological trauma the victims develop. The campaign might

have abolished the article, but a plethora of Lebanese laws still permit violence and

discrimination against women. Not only in Lebanon, but also throughout the rest of the world

laws are in place where women face the repercussions for crimes and actions that aren’t their

fault. Fixing one law should not stop ABBAD’s campaign to promote women’s basic human

rights while others persist. Furthermore, women still face stigmatization because society is not

willing to change its traditional mindsets. People need to understand that the fight for equal

rights among genders as inevitable as gender equality is persistent and new forms of cultural

resistance will aid in its goals.

“Undress 522” and its supporting protests succeeded in pressuring the Lebanese

parliamentary committee to abolish penal code 522. Because of the art installation’s location and

message, videos of the display were posted across multiple news platforms garnering mass

support from both men and women to scrap the article. The message reached such a large

audience due to its emotional appeal and the lack of public knowledge surrounding Lebanese

penal codes. In fact, “only 1% of the Lebanese public opinion knew about article 522.” This

aided in the art installation leaving a lasting impact on people because the shock of finding out

about the article coupled with the sad story each wedding dress tells is the type of art that spurs

people to action. This was easily doable with the amount of volunteers walking around near the

display asking passersby to sign in support of the “A White Dress Does Not Cover the Rape”

campaign. It can be concluded that art is an effective form of cultural resistance, as demonstrated
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by the art installation “Undress 522” in its achievement to abolish Article 522 and sensitize the

public about the law.

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Work Cited

Alabaster, Olivia. “Critics Urge Repeal of Lebanon Rape Law.” Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera, 4 Jan.

2017, www.aljazeera.com/features/2017/1/4/critics-urge-repeal-of-lebanon-rape-law.

Anani, Ghida. “Abolishing Lebanon’s ‘Rape Law’: Spotlight on Abaad’s Campaign.” Girls Not

Brides, 22 Sept. 2017, www.girlsnotbrides.org/articles/abolishing-lebanons-rape-law-spo

tlight-on-abaads-campaign/.

Duncombe, Stephen, introduction to "The Cultural Resistance Reader." Critical Encounters with

Texts: Finding a Place to Stand. Eds. Margaret Himley and Anne Fitzsimmons. New

York: Pearson Custom Publishing, 2009. 131-137. Print.

Kasana, Mehreen. “Lebanese Artist Protests Marriage Rape Law by Hanging Wedding Dresses

from Nooses.” Bustle, 23 Apr. 2017, www.bustle.com/p/lebanese-artist-protests-marriag

e-rape-law-by-hanging-wedding-dresses-from-nooses-53100.

Maalouf, Donna Maria. The Abolishment of the Lebanese Marriage Loophole- Article 522,

University of Gothenburg, gupea.ub.gu.se/bitstream/handle/2077/61537/gupea_2077_615

37_1.pdf?sequence=1.

Wilcox, Emily, "An Investigation of the Intersection between Art and Activism" (2009). Honors

College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects. Paper 275. http://digitalcommons.wku.ed

u/stu_ho n_theses/275