Towards Effective Polices to Promote Women’s Rights in Gaza: the final episode of Pal-Think radio program “Youth’s Papers”
Pal-Think for Strategic Studies has carried out the third and last radio episode of “Youth’s Papers” radio program. This is via Zmn FM on Thursday as part of the project: Civic Education Corps – phase2 implemented by Pal-Think for Strategic Studies, Funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).
It was entitled “Towards Effective Polices to Promote Women’s Rights in Gaza” with the participation of two young researchers: Haneen Lolo and Mysoon Oda, the members of civic education program, and with the call intervention of Ms. Sally Alsammak, Pal-Think’s project coordinator.
In her turn, Ms. Sally intervened to state that Pal-Think is an independent institution working since 2007 in the fields of research and youth empowerment. She added:” we have established the civic education corps after selecting 20 participants and providing them with crash courses about research and policy papers’ writing skills, besides; giving them the chance to transfer their knowledge to their societies through awareness sessions about democracy and human rights”.
She concluded by mentioning that the members of the program have written many policy papers about the exclusive issues of the Palestinian society like; unemployment, freedom of movement and many others.
Moving forward to Ms. Haneen, who stated:” as long as there is no democracy, women will never practice their political participation and will never get their basic rights”. She also added that many women in Gaza suffer sexual harassment including verbal and physical abuses; however they cannot complain for the lack of social security.
She clarified that the absence of laws protecting women and suspending the provisions of CEDAW played a vital role in violating women’s rights.
Ms. Mysoon Oda, in her turn, commenced her speech be referring to the Palestinian declaration of independence and the Palestinian Basic Law of 2005 as they both fundamentally formed the legal protection for women in Palestine. She clarified that women in Gaza suffer many challenges regarding their appointment in positions of decision making, for instance; women occupy 14% of seats in the council of ministers and 86% for men in exchange, according to the PCBS.
It is worth noting that these challenges were caused by the occupation, society traditions, and the low awareness among women
Ms. Mysoon concluded by saying:” encouraging women to participate in the political and professional life, empowering women in positions of decision making, embracing women’s issues in the media and breaking stereotypes” are mechanisms to empower women in the Palestinian society.
