OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES: Report: Palestinian Women's Rights Still Ways Off

Last week, Euromed's Gender Equality Program (EGEP) published a report on gender equality and women's rights in Palestine. Despite optimistic movement forward, the report said that women's rights in Palestine have many hurdles that must be overcome.

A number of the hurdles to women's empowerment and gender equality, the report said, were a direct result of Israel's occupation of the territories.

EGEP studies and reports on gender equality issues across the globe. Recently, including the report published last week, the organization looked into women's roles in the Palestinian territories including Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

According to Article 9 of the Palestinian Basic Law, amended in 2005, all Palestinians are equal before law, and there is no distinction between them on the basis of ethnicity, sex, color, religion, political point of view or disability.

“This means that, at least in theory, men and women in Palestine are equal in all civil and political rights,” the report said.

“Yet, the status of legislation in Palestine is particular due to its political status. Because the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) is not a state, legally the PNA cannot ratify or sign any international convention according to the United Nations‟ system,” it added.

The EGEP found that women are under represented within the government: as of June 2009, only 5 of the 23 Ministers and 17 of 131 legislative council seats belonged to women. Representation of women in the political bodes is estimated at around 15% for senior positions and around 9 percent in the judiciary.

Also in June 2009, the Palestinian Cabinet decided to introduce gender-sensitive budgeting and to establish gender units in the ministries and public institution, according to the report.

Palestinian women are the majority of university students in the West Bank and with a higher education level it is believed in time that equality will also be achievable. However, in 2009 women only accounted for 15.1 percent of the labor force and the female unemployment rate stands at 23.8 percent.

The study also found that although the Palestinian Authority is making progress in improving the lives and legal rights for women in the West Bank, gender equality in Gaza has not seen this improvement. Since the election on Hamas in Gaza, the report says, gender equality has not been taken as much of a proactive role and in some cases gotten worse.