The Ladies' Platform: A Report from the Lebanese Women's League on the City-Cleaning Session

At three o'clock on the afternoon of Friday, December 7, 1945, there met at the kindergarten school of the Lebanese Women's League the women and men delegates of the associations and organizations listed below, under the chairmanship of Mrs. Heneni Tarcha, president of the Lebanese Women's League —

Mrs. Ana Tabet: for the Lebanese Women's League.

Mrs. Sasson, Mrs. Samah: for the Israelite Society.

Mr. Fuad Abdel Malek, Mr. Joseph Daou: for the Municipality of Beirut.

Dr. Emile Debs: for the Ghassaneh organization.

Dr. Fawzi Daouk: for the Najjada.

Mr. William Hawi: for the Kataeb.

Mrs. Christine Rizk, delegate of the Women's Union, sent her excuses and deputized Mrs. Tarcha to act on her behalf.

The session was opened; then Mr. Abdel Malek explained certain measures the municipality had taken to remedy its previous shortcomings in enforcing the regulations and laws, and in response to certain proposals which the committee had recorded at the previous meeting, namely:

1 — It has enacted a new schedule of penalties for violations, raising the fine from half a lira to five liras, from five liras to twenty-five, and from twenty-five to fifty.

2 — The municipality has taken steps to bring in the remaining tons of the insecticide D.D.T.; it will arrive and be put into use shortly.

3 — The municipality has received a number of new vehicles and is at work fitting them out in the sanitary manner suited to their use in the near future.

4 — It has decided upon a new method of collecting refuse from the houses: the municipal carts will pass by the houses at fixed times, take up the refuse directly, and place it in the carts; this method will be put into effect very soon.

5 — The municipality is attending to the washing of the streets several times a week, each according to its importance.

6 — Instructions have been given to the inspectors to pursue beggars more actively.

7 — The municipality has seen to raising the wages of the diligent workman who does his duty, and to docking the pay of the workman who falls short in his.

8 — The question of banning the presence of the porters from the public squares and main streets cannot be put into effect at present, because it would cut off the livelihood of this class of the people.

9 — The municipality absolutely forbids the use of refuse and filth to fertilize crops, and it is prepared to receive every complaint of this kind and to pursue the offenders.

Then, after Mr. Abdel Malek had finished his statement, the meeting proceeded to study certain proposals, so that the town-cleaning project might be more complete than it now is, and the following resolutions were adopted:

1 — To request that a sum be set aside in the municipal budget for publicity, alerting the inhabitants to their duty to abide by the cleanliness regulations, and for the printing and distribution of leaflets showing the harm that results from failure to abide by these regulations.

2 — To multiply the gardens and parks in the heart of the capital, so that every quarter shall have its own park, to which the children of that quarter may resort to stroll and play, instead of scattering through the streets and being exposed to the danger of automobiles and to picking up microbes.

3 — To submit a project to the government and to the municipality for the building of sanitary houses for the workers outside the town; then to begin moving them, in stages, out of their present unclean quarters, demolishing those quarters and afterward rebuilding them in a sanitary manner conforming to the town-beautification program.

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The session was adjourned at five o'clock, to meet again at three o'clock on the afternoon of the following Friday, December 14, 1945.