In response to numerous calls to tackle the country’s rising levels of domestic violence, Qatar is drafting a new law that would define and criminalize the act, local media reports.
Qatar’s National Development Strategy, which records a jump in domestic violence cases across the country, has called for the establishment of a law by 2016.
Students at Qatar University’s Law College and foreign consultants plan to come up with the first “culturally appropriate” draft of the law by June, a QU official said.
The Peninsula reports:
“Qatar has a law which makes it illegal to assault a person. What we learn is that it is hard to prosecute the perpetrators of domestic violence under this law since it is general,” said (the official).
The NDS shows Qatar has seen a significant jump in the number of reported domestic violence incidents against women and children since 2004.
It also points out that Qatar faces two primary challenges in reducing domestic violence: the lack of a systematic data collection and incomplete investigations of suspected cases of abuse or neglect.
Read the NDS’s references to family violence below.
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Credit: Photo by SalFalko
