Abstract

Violence against women is a global phenomenon. It victimizes and marginalizes women and blocks efforts to build democracy and sustainable development worldwide. Despite the internationally recognized urgency of understanding and working on this phenomenon, the subject of violence against women in the Middle East and North Africa remains loaded with controversy and taboo. Consequently, research and action on the issue are rare. The problem is even more critical, and requires more pressing intervention, in the specific conflict-loaded context of Palestine.

The Women's Empowerment Project (WEP) of the Gaza Community Mental Health Program (GCMHP), has proposed an action-oriented research project to address the problem of violence against women in the Gaza Strip. WEP was founded in 1995 to provide relief and rehabilitation programs for women victims of violence. This project aims to build and sustain WEP's capacity to engage in gender-based research and to improve its interventions. This will be done by devising strategies for raising women's awareness of the issue, engaging in community advocacy, developing the infrastructure of services needed to deal with victims of violence and lobbying to influence policies.

Activities will include: training 10 community leaders from WEP in gender-based research methods; a pilot study on violence against women as a concrete application of the training and the first step in generating improved advocacy, infrastructure improvement and lobbying strategies; and a workshop to discuss, strategize and network around the results of the pilot study.

Post-Project Summary

The project proceeded as follows. The principal researcher, resident in Canada, trained local researchers in 3-month blocks over 11 months. In addition to research techniques, the training covered ways of improving the quality of service offered to abused women and strategies for lobbying for change. The fieldwork, including 120 interviews and two focus groups, was carried out over a 6-month period and analysis of the data took a further 5 months. The final workshop, which was to have included participants from the West Bank and overseas, was put off due to the El Aqsa Intifada in September 2000. However, the comprehensive report resulting from the study was widely disseminated to local women's organizations, interested individuals and the media. The team also published a report documenting stories by women directly affected by the Intifada. There were plans to translate both documents into English. According to the English synthesis of the study report, a representative sample of 120 women in Gaza Strip were interviewed regarding their social, economic and demographic characteristics, and experience of abuse (verbal, mental, physical, sexual). A total of 62.5% of the women interviewed reported having experienced some form of domestic violence. The highest rate of abuse was found among divorced women (100%) and the lowest among single women (34.6%). The rate was higher in cities than in refugee camps and villages, and tended to decrease with age and level of education. Throughout the duration of the fieldwork, the researchers took the opportunity to inform women victims of violence of of their legal rights and the services available under the Women's Empowerment Project (WEP).

Recipient Institution(s)