At the forum on Social movement for Morocco and the Maghreb/Machrek region held in Bouznika from March 5th– 7th, 2010, e-joussour team got a chance to interview two young women activist from Palestine who had travelled from a far distance to share their stories, experiences and to raise their voices at this social forum. Hanin Nassar and Ruba Odeh have been working for the Union of Palestinian Women Committee. The following is what they shared with us:

Can you please brief us how is the situation of women in Palestine now?

Ruba: As you know, in our country we have a conflict situation and there are also a lot of social problems. Women’s groups in Palestine are working at different levels and areas. For example, they work on how to help women have freedom from occupation, social and traditional oppression, and about the rights of women. In Palestine, generally women’s groups are very strong, they work a lot on women’s rights issues and also at the political level.  We are working at the grassroots, but our union works in different levels. Our vision is to work at a political level and for social issues we work at grassroots level. 

What are constraints/challenges for women’s movement in your country?

Ruba: The big obstacles are political ones and occupation, we are now looking on how to free ourselves from occupation, plus we have many social problems that we are targeting, for example, how women can get their rights in their homes, rights in their work and basically their rights at different levels.

In your opinion, what has been a progress/achievement so far?

Ruba: It is not easy to say so far, but we are working on how to help women have freedom, how to be free at different levels. First of all, we talk about occupation and social conflict in life. 

Hanin: The Palestinian women’s groups have sacrificed the social rights of women in order to have social rights for the people in Palestine to get rid of the occupation. With regard to what has been achieved so far, the Palestinian government has signed and ratified the CEDAW, but in fact, it is only a signature on the paper, as they have not changed anything in their rules and regulations. Nevertheless, from our side, on March 8, 2010 we will make an action participating in the world march of women. We will march towards the government. Another progress we have achieved is that the government has accepted to change a law that discriminated the punishments given for adultery and related crimes. Currently this law says that if a man kills his wife for suspected adultery, he can receive a sentence for not more than two years in prison. The same sentence for a woman would be more than two years. Now, the law will be changed so that the punishment will be the same for women and men. This is what we will be achieving on March 8th.

Another thing is that we have the right for women and men to be equal in front of the law, but it is not actually being implemented especially when in conflict with traditional customs. Generally speaking, in Palestine women have a low level of education and are usually in a low position of the hierarchy in workplaces. At the moment, we are conducting a study relating to rape and sex trade. We have discovered that in Gaza girls aged between 12-14, who have been taken to Israel and are supposed to be working in farms in a resettlement area, are actually working (or forced to work) in sex places (brothels) and they are being traded. This is what we have found from a study and we are quite sure that the Palestinian and the Israel governments might be involved in this trafficking activity. We will be conducting a very big campaign in Gaza and West bank on this aspect.

In our union, we are working with women in villages and in cities. We cover most of the cities in Gaza and West bank, and we also have branches in Syria and Jordan, and in refugees’ camps. We are helping women to be economically independent so that they can have a voice in their families. Also, we are developing women cooperatives in villages so that they can get money for themselves and for the unions. Since the union is a non-profit organization, we seek to get some contributions in order to manage and sustain a project. In addition, we provide trainings for them on leadership, empowerment and conflict management. We also have programs for providing youth and girls with trainings. For girls, we have a program to support them to go to university (provision of scholarship) specifically for girls whose families are poor and where the father is a prisoner. Besides, we have 25 kindergartens to help mothers to have more time to do other activities outside their homes.

Ruba: we also have awareness campaigns especially regarding legal issues.

How about women’s organization within the government structure? In your country do you have such institutions?

Hanin: Yes, we have the Ministry of Women’s affairs and they used to be very active. However, once they got into the government structure, they can do nothing. In fact, the government created this ministry in order to put women inside the box, meaning that they have to follow the government orders, they have limited power and cannot go beyond imposed limits. This is the problem for this ministry.

How do you find this social movement forum important to your movement? How does it help your movement back in your country?

Ruba: It is a good chance for us to meet many women’s organizations in different Arab countries who have the same vision and we share a lot of experiences. We can also see how they work at different levels, and share our different experiences.

Hanin: in addition to what Ruba has just said, we, the Union of Palestinian women, are having many networks in the world with many women’s organizations, especially the World March of Women (WMW). Through WMW, we are contacting many new organizations. However, honestly speaking, we are not networking with the Arab women’s movement very much. That is why this forum is very important for us, because we can meet other Arab women’s movement and connect with them and perhaps we can make some projects and work together with them at different levels.

We definitely think that we can take some of the lessons learned from other women’s organizations at this forum especially because we, Arab women, are facing nearly 90% of the same problems or oppression.

What’s next for you?

Hanin: upon our return, we will be in contact with other movements that we have met here.  We are trying to meet the Moroccan women’s movement so that we will be connecting with them to work together in some projects and share our experiences, and perhaps organize a forum for Arab women’s movement in the Maghreb/Machrek region.