Pal-Think concludes the «Youth Papers» radio programme

Dr Sally al-Sammak, projects coordinator at Pal-Think for Strategic Studies, said Pal-Think for Strategic Studies is an independent institution working since 2007 in the field of research to strengthen and enrich discussion and to support and empower youth to open dialogue with citizens and decision-makers.

This came during her intervention in the final radio episode of the programme “Youth Papers”, broadcast on Zaman radio, which discussed a research paper titled “Toward effective policies for strengthening women's rights in the Gaza Strip”, issued by the researchers Haneen Lulu and Maysoon Odeh within the civic-education project implemented by Pal-Think with funding from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

Al-Sammak affirmed that they attach the greatest importance to youth, as most of Palestinian society is young.

She continued: “We founded the civic-education body, formed of 20 young men and women, to carry out awareness sessions in the different areas of the Gaza Strip on the issues of democracy, human rights, and youth political participation”.

The projects coordinator explained that the training programme was intensive on the issues of lobbying and advocacy and research and policy papers, to develop their research capacity — in human-rights issues and political participation fundamentally.

She pointed out that the trainees issued research papers taking up youth issues from their own perspective, and thanks to the civic-educator preparation project, they now have the capacity to convey them to decision-makers”.

Al-Sammak concluded by saying: “The trainees issue research papers on issues they live and suffer from, such as: freedom of movement, unemployment, the electricity crisis, the separation between the homeland's two halves, and others”.

For her part, the researcher Haneen Lulu opened her remarks by thanking Pal-Think for its unlimited support for them, for it “brought us out to society, gave us opportunities nearly non-existent in Gaza, strengthened our points of weakness, and started with us from zero”.

She said employers must give the working woman the rights the law has set down, for there are some institutions that violate women's rights.

She pointed to the absence of several laws protecting women from violence, and that the executive authority does not implement many of the agreements that protect women, such as the CEDAW convention.

She added: “Many women in Gaza are subjected to verbal and sexual harassment, and are forced to keep silent and not complain to the competent bodies for the absence of communal safety”.

She stressed that “so long as there is no democracy, there is no political participation for women, and they will not obtain the simplest of their rights”.

For her part, the researcher Maysoon Odeh said the declaration of independence of 1988 was the foundation of protecting women's rights in Palestine, for it set down social equality between man and woman and the protection of her rights — in addition to the amended Basic Law of 2005 and the elections law of 1995.

She explained that women in Gaza suffer from the police's procrastination in referring women's complaints to the public prosecution; and should a woman lodge a complaint with the ministry of interior, it is referred to the public-relations department, for it is received as a quarrel and not as an assault — to force the woman to waive the case.

Odeh added: “There is a great gap between the sexes in public life, decision-making positions, and civil institutions. For example, women in the council of ministers form 14% against 86% for men during 2019 according to the Palestinian bureau of statistics; the rate of women's representation in the diplomatic corps is 11%, and their share falls the higher the career ladder rises”.

As for the challenges facing women, the researcher said they lie in the occupation, women's low awareness of their rights, and society's view of them.

She concluded with the tools of empowering women in Palestinian society: absorbing them into working and political life, empowering them to participate in decision-making, taking up women's issues in the media and breaking their stereotyped image, and finding a safe incubator for them.