This report was produced with the support of the Qarib program, implemented by CFI, the French Media Development Agency, and funded by the French Development Agency (AFD).
“I found you disgraced, and no one will bury my head in shame”… With these words, Adla’s brother sentenced her to death and carried out the verdict in cold blood, followed by a celebration of “washing the dishonor.”
At the birthday party Adla prepared for her son Ghadi, or rather for the doll she chose to embody the place of the child she lost, a victim of her traditional environment, amid the neighborhood’s modest decorations and the sound of laughter, her brother stormed the scene armed with a distorted notion of “honor.” He gave her no chance to speak, not even to catch her breath, before firing three bullets that killed her instantly, in front of neighbors and friends, and before Ghadi’s eyes.
This scene from episode 26 of the series Bil-Dam was not a fleeting dramatic moment, but a painful reflection of a reality many women in our societies live every day. The character of Adla, portrayed by actress Cynthia Karam, represents every woman who has paid the price for being born into a society that imposes its constraints and judgments on her, while excusing men’s actions because “nothing shames them.”
Ghadi: Everything we are forced to lose because we are women
The scene of Adla’s murder shook me deeply and awakened fears I had long buried: fear of injustice and the absence of accountability, and fear of the reality that our lives are threatened the moment we defy imposed constraints. I found myself asking: how much of Adla lives inside each of us without us realizing it? How many times have we remained silent when our lives were violated in “less violent” ways because we learned that silence is safer? And how many Ghadis must we lose so that patriarchal societies stop pointing their guns at us?
I believe the writer Nadine Jaber did not intend Ghadi to be merely Adla’s lost child. She wanted him to carry a deeper meaning. Ghadi represents everything taken from us because we are women: the job we were denied because we were deemed “unsuitable,” the love that was buried because it defied tradition, or because it came at a time when society did not allow us to love.
Adla: Manal, Zeina, Yasmine, Rajia, Zeinab, Sally, Abeer, and others…
Adla’s killing sparked widespread reactions on social media, with comments filled with shock, anger, and grief. Many saw the scene as a mirror of real stories they had lived or heard, reopening familiar wounds of women’s oppression and silencing. What was portrayed resonated because it reflects a reality rife with contradictions, betrayals, and violations that pass without accountability.
What happened to Adla in the series mirrors what countless women in Lebanon and the region endure: a reality in which women are killed under the label of “honor,” for failing to conform to a role prewritten for them.
Adla’s story revived the memory of every woman who was stabbed, strangled, run over, or shot. Manal Harfoush, Zeina Kanjo, Yasmine El-Sayyed, Rajia Al-Akkoum, Zeinab Zaiter, Sally Jrejora, Abeer Al-Rahhal, and many others. Women whose dreams were suffocated just as their bodies were, because society allowed the killer to believe he owned their lives and that the law would always provide him an escape.
In April 2020, the crime in Baakline in the Chouf district shocked public opinion when Mazen Harfoush murdered his wife, Manal Al-Taimani, under the pretext of “honor,” in a massacre that claimed ten lives from his family. Months later, the dismembered body of a woman (S.G.) was found in garbage bags in Riyaq; she had been killed by her husband in front of their children before he took his own life. In January 2021, model Zeina Kanjo was strangled in her home in Ain El-Mreisseh by her husband, who already had multiple prior security reports against him for violence and theft.
In May 2023, Rajia Al-Akkoum was lured by her ex-husband under the pretense of seeing their children, just two days after their divorce. There, he stabbed her and repeatedly ran her over with his car until she died in front of their children. Similar scenes followed with Zeinab Zaiter in Choueifat, who was shot ten times in the head by her husband after he found photos of her without a hijab. Her brother later appeared in a video stating he “would have killed his sister to wash his honor” had her husband not beaten him to it, adding that “there is no vengeance between them.”
Months ago, journalist Abeer Al-Rahhal was killed inside the Sharia court in Chehim by her husband, who recorded a video justifying the crime before taking his own life.
Violence is not a “personal” issue
According to statistics from Lebanese human rights organizations, notably KAFA and Abaad, more than 107 women were killed in Lebanon between 2020 and 2023 as a result of domestic violence, an average of nearly one woman every two weeks. Estimates suggest the real number may be higher due to cases that were never officially documented or were registered as “accidents.”
In 2024 alone, 26 such crimes were recorded, according to the Lebanese Council to Resist Violence Against Women.
Every one of these women was Adla. Violence against women is not an exceptional event nor a “personal” matter. It is a recurring pattern, covered by silence and justified by “tradition.” And with every new crime, the same question confronts us: how many Adlas must we lose before we act?
