A radio episode on the paper «Including and empowering women with disabilities in Palestinian society»

The participants in the training “Research writings in gender and feminism”, funded by the Government of Canada, continue presenting their research papers through the programme “Youth Creations”, broadcast on the local Zaman radio. In the sixth episode, the researchers Saddam al-Ghandour and Mariam Abu Amra discussed a research paper titled “Integrating and empowering women with disability in Palestinian society”.

The director of the Peace Club for Persons with Disability, Mohammed al-Arabi, said in his intervention: “The problem of women with disability is an old-new problem, and for years we have been attempting to solve their problem, because they are the most marginalised in Palestinian society, and they have many problems — such as the adaptation of government buildings for them, deprivation sometimes of education because of the family; some of them are deprived of marriage and others are subjected to family violence.”

He pointed out that they work to break their isolation through sports programmes or psychological-support programmes. They likewise help some of them complete their university education or help them in vocational education. And if funding is available they open small projects for them: 120 projects for women with special needs have been carried out since 2017 in partnership with partner institutions.

Al-Arabi added: “There is only an application of the health aspect and the educational aspect of Law No. 4 of '99 concerning persons with disability, and there is no application of the work aspect, for the absence of any obligation on the factory or the commercial establishment to employ persons with disability. The law, unfortunately, is formalistic — although Palestine signed the international convention on persons with disability in 2014, the Palestinian law has not been brought into accord.”

He affirmed that the division has greatly affected the non-application of the law concerning persons with disability in the Gaza Strip.

For her part, the researcher Mariam Abu Amra said the paper took up the importance of integrating and empowering women with disability in economic life, and the benefit that will return to them personally — an improvement of the standard of living and an increase in the rate of their participation in the labour market, at a time when the proportion of those of them working is only 4%.

She made clear that women with disability suffer marginalisation and a violation of their social and economic rights: the proportion of those who work and have a source of income is only 4% out of more than 115,634 women with disability in Palestine^. They also suffer from the unavailability of incubators dedicated to nurturing their businesses and presenting the support or training necessary to bring them into working life. Also, many of the working women among them are subjected to material exploitation and deprivation of their salaries and the allowances disbursed to them from the Ministry of Social Development, so they cannot take any commercial decision or carry out an economic activity, for their non-possession of funds because of the family's control.

Abu Amra pointed to the Palestinian labour law's stipulation that employers must employ 5% of their employees from persons with disability.

For his part, the researcher Saddam al-Ghandour said the paper presented some interventions that could improve women with disability's entry into the labour market, namely: vocational training such as sewing, embroidery, handicrafts, food industries, printing, graphics, and detergent-making; the use of technology, as the United Nations stipulated, to empower this category; and also raising awareness of economic rights, because only about 21.3% of them have knowledge of the international conventions concerning the rights of persons with disability.

He made clear that among the results of the economic return of empowering women with disability are: providing work opportunities for them, and increasing their income — a matter that contributes to increasing the gross domestic product (GDP). According to the World Bank's estimates, the world losses in gross domestic product because of the exclusion of persons with disability range between 1.71 trillion and 2.23 trillion US dollars annually. Also, limiting the phenomenon of poverty within Palestinian society.

Al-Ghandour recommended the necessity of activating the articles contained in the international treaties and national laws that guarantee the protection of persons with disability, and treating their shortcomings — such as increasing the employment rate in a way that achieves equality between the sexes and equal opportunity in work; increasing the government allocations for the programmes that work to empower them; presenting soft loans for starting their own projects; encouraging employers to employ them by presenting incentives such as exemptions from some fees and taxes; working with the municipalities and the owners of establishments to provide an adapted environment for this category; and finally, working to increase women with disability's awareness of their rights related to their protection from exploitation and from violence in its forms — the economic specifically — and increasing the awareness of society and employers of the importance of integrating persons with disability into public life and the labour market, through the media institutions in Palestine.

The designations used and the presentation of materials in this programme entail no expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Government of Canada