The “Hayat” Center for the Protection and Empowerment of Women and Families, a project of the Center for Women’s Legal Researches, Counselling and Protection (CWLRCP), is conducting a series of workshops to raise awareness about the center. The center focuses on addressing the phenomenon of gender-based violence through an integrated approach based on human rights principles. Its work involves prevention – by promoting a gender-sensitive culture and family relationships free from violence – as well as the protection and empowerment of women, girls, and children who are victims and survivors of violence.

The center also aims to serve as an effective tool for mobilizing society to activate and coordinate resources and efforts to end violence against women in Palestinian society, and to support family relationships by strengthening supportive and protective bonds based on positive values such as care, love, valuing trust, and preserving life.

The workshops, conducted by social workers and the community activities coordinator, were attended by (331) representatives of non-governmental and women’s organizations, as well as a number of women and men from all governorates of the Gaza Strip. The specialists provided information about the center’s departments, which include:

• The “Family Forum” section for visitation of children in custody by one parent. The “Family Forum” at the center receives children in the custody of one parent, along with two family members, based on a decision by the Sharia court for visitation, in order to avoid conducting these visits at the police station.
• The social support section for battered women, which provides social and psychological support and rehabilitation services to battered women on a daily basis, without requiring the woman to stay overnight.
• The legal aid section, which focuses on defending women who request legal assistance in family and violence-related cases. The center provides free legal representation for them before the courts.
• The shelter for battered and threatened women, which is currently suspended by a decision of the Ministry of Social Affairs in Gaza. The purpose of this section is to shelter women at risk under a program dedicated to this purpose, with the aim of protecting the woman at risk, resolving her family problem, and working to reintegrate her into the family.

The specialists noted the acceptance of the target groups of the “Hayat” Center project through the workshops and the increasing number of consultations directed to the center. They emphasized the need to activate the shelter section due to the community’s dire need for it. They also called for the importance of having branches of the center in various governorates, in order to achieve the greatest possible benefit for the groups in their places of residence.