Ramallah – The Palestinian Working Woman Society for Development (PWWSD) conducted a training course in its Ramallah headquarters, titled “mechanisms of supervising the implementation of international standards when providing legal services”. This came as part of the project “Strengthening Women’s Access to Justice in the Occupied Palestinian Territories” implemented with funding from UN Women, through Sawasya (the UN Women/UNDP joint program – Strengthening the Rule of Law: Justice and Security for the Palestinian People 2014-2017).
The 4-day training was conducted by Ms. Haleema Abu-Sulb, averaging 20 training hours, and targeting 10 practicing female lawyers from Ramallah, Nablus, Tulkarim, Hebron, Jenin, and Bethlehem.
The training aimed to enrich the trainees’ knowledge of human rights concepts and women’s rights in particular, as well as providing them with skills specific to connecting and implementing international standards related to women’s rights, when implementing local and international laws.
The trainees were introduced to the current laws, namely the penal code and personal status law, observing women’s reality through them. In addition to delving into family violence protection law and the national referral system for battered women, as well as the Palestinian penal code and personal status law project. The course also worked on raising the knowledge of the target group regarding local law, particularly court proceedings from a gender perspective, as well as invoking International Human Rights Law, CEDAW in particular, and connecting it to local laws, in order to honor the international conventions and agreements signed by Palestine. The course focused on the penal code, then discussed the relation between the project for family violence protection law and the current reality of battered women. In addition to addressing the national referral system for battered women.
Project Coordinator, Hana Qaisi said that practicing female lawyers were targeted, in order to build their capacities, develop their performance, and strengthen their positive role in carrying out the rule of law. This course came to improve their performance, strengthen and deepen their awareness of applied laws and court proceedings in Palestine, all from a gender and human rights perspective. These principles are considered essential indicators of real justice in dealing with Palestinian women’s basic rights, based on gender equality and nondiscrimination.
Abu-Sulb noted that the training focused on the needs and experiences of the target group, and worked on preparing an awareness plan for empowering female lawyers. This plan includes all training activities organized sequentially according to a unified approach to cover all essential content. An interactive and participatory approach was taken to create the training sessions and activities, including live testimonies of women’s issues and rights in the eyes of the law.
One participant, Majd Assaf said that the training helped her develop her ideas and capacities, and to learn more deeply about human rights and applied laws, particularly personal status law. Another participant, Lina Jallad talked about the importance of this kind of training, and that it deepens their knowledge and awareness of the applied law in Palestine from a gender perspective, as well as developing their skills in dealing with implementing international standards.