The undersigned feminist and community organizations in the Gaza Strip governorates condemn the killings of young women that have occurred in the past few days. On Thursday, February 20, 2014, (A.Sh.), an 18-year-old resident of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, was stabbed to death by her brother while she was prostrating in prayer. On the same day, just hours earlier, (S.N.M.), a 17-year-old girl from Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, was brutally beaten to death by her father and buried without a burial permit. Earlier, the body of a young woman was found recently murdered west of Ramallah.
The organizations signing this statement express their concern about the spread of crime in Palestinian society in all its forms, especially the recurring killings of young women and women. They have previously warned that these heinous and successive crimes indicate a dangerous escalation of violence against women in Palestinian society, without deterrence or a moral compass.
We, at The Center for Women’s Legal Researches, Counselling and Protection (CWLRCP), the Palestinian Center for Democracy and Conflict Resolution, the Women’s Affairs Center, and the Free Thought and Culture Foundation, call on the official authorities, within their respective jurisdictions in both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, to take swift action to put an end to violence in all its forms, especially the killings of Palestinian women and girls. We also denounce the slow pace of law enforcement agencies in announcing the results of investigations into such crimes and publicly prosecuting the perpetrators. We demand an immediate public trial for the perpetrators to serve as a deterrent to anyone who contemplates attacking the lives of women and girls.
We call on President Mahmoud Abbas, Fatah, Hamas, and all political forces to expedite decisive steps towards ending the division and achieving national reconciliation, so that the legislative institution can return to its work and the efforts of the Palestinian National Authority institutions can be united to end the state of fragmentation, security chaos, and violence prevailing in Palestinian society, and to formulate a law to protect women from violence and safeguard their rights and lives.
We call on all civil society organizations and media institutions to join forces and sound the alarm forcefully to explain the forms and dangers of societal violence against women and girls and to confront it, and to expose and denounce anyone who attacks the lives of women and girls and anyone who practices violence against them in any form.
Signatories:
