The Center for Women’s Legal Researches, Counselling and Protection (CWLRCP) held its first community dialogue forum entitled “Women’s Rights and the Consequences of Diminishing These Rights,” as part of the “Youth for Equality” project, funded by the German Heinrich Böll Foundation.

The forum was attended by a number of young activists and advocates for women’s issues and rights.

Ms. Zeinab Al-Ghunaimi, Director of the Center, welcomed the attendees, explaining that the project aims to contribute to strengthening women’s rights from a gender perspective in the Gaza Strip by improving the level of knowledge and legal education for students in local universities, to increase society’s sensitivity towards women’s issues and rights.

She clarified that the project aims to reach a segment of young people to bring about change based on justice and the concept of equality between people, both men and women, in society. This required addressing people with conscious minds so that we can bring about change in society.

She said: “There are many struggles by the feminist movement working seriously to serve the laws in a way that achieves justice between men and women. Indeed, we were able to establish the idea of ​​respecting women’s rights thanks to the partisan feminist frameworks, the General Union of Palestinian Women, human rights organizations, and the women’s institutions and centers that have been working in this field for years.”

She added: “There are laws that guarantee equality between women and men, but on the other hand, there are other laws that have not yet been created, including the Palestinian Nationality Law, which is difficult to create because it is linked to sovereignty and the state.”

She explained that in Palestine, we possess political, civil, and economic rights, but our problem lies in social rights related to family law.

She emphasized that the Center will seek to develop the project in order to achieve the desired goals differently according to the desire of the participants in the forum, based on the results achieved during the project.

On the same level, the project coordinator indicated during a presentation of the project that it aims to develop understanding and knowledge of women’s issues in local universities, especially with regard to women’s family and civil rights, and to increase society’s sensitivity towards women’s rights to avoid problems of early marriage and the effects of divorce (child custody and alimony) in the direction of advocacy and policy change, and increase young people’s access to legal education and social inclusion.

She added that the project aims to improve the awareness of 1200 university students regarding women’s rights from a gender perspective, with the aim of inviting young people to present initiatives to advocate for women’s rights.

The meeting included a number of effective interventions and discussions on a number of issues, including gender and discrimination based on it against women, violence against women and protection from it in the Penal Code, and women’s right to work.