Violence Against Women and Girls in Palestinian Territories

The Palestinian Authority is allowing violent treatment against women and girls to happen with no or very little repercussions to the accused. Most times females won't even report the abuses.

If a wife or daughter reports abuse, rape, incest or whatever from their husband/father to the authorities, most of the times the case is dismissed if the husband/father claims the event didn't happen. Then the female will most likely be killed by her relatives (an "Honor Killing") because she brought shame to them.

Brothers and fathers have forced sisters/daughters to have sex with them with no punishment. Men force their wives to have sex with other men, they beat their wives and daughters, all these things go unpunished, for the most part.

Please read these two links below, it is simply barbaric what is allowed in Palestine.

Occupied Palestinian Territories: Authorities Must Address Violence against Women and Girls

(Ramallah, November 7, 2006) − The Palestinian Authority (PA) has failed to establish an effective framework to respond to violence against women and girls, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Despite the current political and economic crisis, there are steps that the PA can and should take to address these abuses as a priority issue within its security agenda.

The 101-page report, “A Question of Security: Violence Against Palestinian Women and Girls,” based on field research conducted in the West Bank and Gaza in November 2005 and early 2006, documents dozens of cases of violence ranging from spousal and child abuse to rape, incest and murders committed under the guise of family “honor.” There is increasing recognition of the problem, and some PA officials have indicated their support for a more vigorous government response, but the PA has taken little action to prevent these abuses. As a result, violence against women and girls is often unreported, and even when it is, it usually goes unpunished.

With some exceptions, Palestinian police lack the expertise and the will to address violence against women in a manner that is effective, sensitive to the needs of the victim and respectful of their privacy. As a result, police officers often turn to informal measures rather than serious investigations. When questioned, many were unapologetic about their efforts to encourage marriage between a rapist and his victim, sometimes with the assistance of influential clan leaders. They see intervention as a means of “solving” these cases. In addition, police often force women to return to their families even when there is a substantial threat of further harm.

“When confronted with cases of violence against women and girls, the Palestinian criminal justice system is more interested in avoiding public scandal than in seeing justice done,” said Lucy Mair, the report’s other researcher and co-author. “A woman’s basic right to life and bodily integrity is seen as a secondary concern at best.”

Selected testimonies from “A Question of Security”:

“He [my husband] used to beat me everywhere. He beat me with a rock on my leg … I never went to the hospital, and I didn’t even tell my parents. I was just thankful to be alive.” − Mariam Ismail (pseudonym), 35

“My problem started with my family. When I was 12, my brother attacked me, attacked me sexually…My brother was 24. He’d hit me. Everyone in my family knew. My father died when I was small, so there was no one to protect me. My brother would even hit my mother. I didn’t report it since there was no one to protect me. I couldn’t tell the police. I was not allowed to even leave the house.”
− Nada Omar (pseudonym), 30

“Rape cases are dealt with at the police station as special cases. Most of the time, the result is that they [the rapist and the victim] get married under the carpet to avoid scandal. Rape cases rarely go to courts … In all of these cases, the police want to solve the matter within the family without documentation.” − Palestinian women’s rights activist, Gaza

Here is the Human Rights Watch Report
A Question of Security : Violence against Palestinian Women and Girls

This is the part of the report that tells how hard it is for females to get justice, and down lower it tells about the Child Abuse, Sexual Violence, Rape, Incest, and Murder of Women under the Guise of “Honor”.
III. Social and Legal Obstacles to Reporting Violence and Seeking Redress

It is truly hard to believe this is going on in Palestine. Deplorable.

And to think, the US might soon resume sending aid (money) to HELP the Palestinian Authority.

I think the US should only give aid to the Palestinian Authority if Womens Rights criteria's are met.

No Womens Rights = No U.S. Aid


[edit on 11/11/06 by Keyhole]

Here are some more quotes from the 3rd link: (keep in mind this report is from the Human Rights Watch organization, a non profit organization.)

]III. Social and Legal Obstacles to Reporting Violence and Seeking Redress

Women’s NGOs attribute the underreporting of violence to a variety of factors, including: the perceived futility of seeking justice; societal stigma associated with reporting family violence to the authorities; potentially life-threatening consequences of reporting the abuse; and the fact that the perpetrator is often the only breadwinner in the family.93

Public opinion polls also reveal that Palestinian society largely condones violence against women and discourages women from reporting abuse. A poll of 1,133 women conducted in 2002 by the Palestinian Working Women’s Society for Development in cooperation with the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion in Beit Sahour found that 53.7 percent of those polled thought that it was inappropriate for the police to interfere when a man assaults his wife; 55.5 percent felt that a wife beaten by her husband should not talk about it to anyone except her parents.95 When those who experienced violence were asked why they did not leave their abusive marriages, more than 70 percent reported that they refused to leave home because of fear of losing custody of their children. Close to 50 percent felt that divorce was too stigmatizing, and 21.9 percent reported that they would have no place to go if they left their homes.

Child Abuse

Like children everywhere, Palestinian children, particularly girls, are vulnerable to physical and sexual abuse within the family and appropriate laws are needed to protect them. In a survey published in 2005, the PCBS found that 51.4 percent of Palestinian mothers believed that at least one of their children (aged five to 17) was exposed to violence, with the vast majority of such abuse (93.3 percent) being inflicted by family members.117 In another study, close to 80 percent of Palestinian girls aged five to 17 reported that they were exposed to violence in the home.118

And this is about the worst that I've read yet.

Sexual Violence

An unknown number of Palestinian women and girls are victims of sexual abuse every year in the OPT. According to Palestinian social workers, few ever report this violence to their families or the authorities. Fewer still ever make it to the prosecutor’s office due to mediation that sometimes occurs between the victim, the rapist, and their respective families.129 One prosecutor who has worked in Hebron and Bethlehem for more than six years told Human Rights Watch that he has only prosecuted two cases of sexual violence in that time.130

In addition to the fear of being blamed or harmed by family members as a result of the attack,131 a number of legal obstacles stand in the way of victims seeking justice for sexual violence in the Palestinian courts. These obstacles include discriminatory and abusive laws that prohibit minors from pressing charges for incest and allow the courts to suspend the sentences of rapists who agree to marry their victim. The lack of the necessary expertise and tools to carry out criminal investigations in sexual violence cases is another obstacle. According to the same prosecutor, “the first problem in Palestine is that it’s very hard to carry out these kinds of investigations since we don’t have the technical capacity to do lab work or to collect evidence.”132

This is the way Palestine takes care of their women, no wonder Israel keeps their borders closed!

Wow if this was 4 soilders out of 140,000 it would make front page news. I am sure this is somehow Israels fault because these poor men had a bad upbringing because of no homeland.

maybe you guys are young and you don't remember how things were here at one time. If you watch the old movies where guys would slap women around, or abuse women, even make sexual advances in the workplace.

You might also be too young to remember during our own times of Racial inequality which was less then 40 years ago, our own minorities had high levels of spousal and child abuse.

Anyways of course this all just shocks you so much, but checkpoints where the IDF not only abuse women, they abuse old men, women and even children , and this is just fine and dandy LOL Its the Palestinians that beat their wives that upset you

Try living in squalor most of your life,having to drink water contaminated by raw sewage coming from a settlers village, or waking up to find 1000's of culled sick chickens buried in your front yard where your kids play,having Israelis come and dump toxic waste on your land because they can, having to beg for work and then have some punk kid in jackboots at some checkpoint deny you entry and end up losing your job after you can't get to work 6 days in a row when you have 6 mouths to feed and to top it off they just sent you a notice they are gonna raze your house in a week and see if you are the sweetest thing on earth. Pffft you people have no conscience. Of course they are affected by whats going on over there!

Originally posted by factfinder38
Wow if this was 4 soilders out of 140,000 it would make front page news. I am sure this is somehow Israels fault because these poor men had a bad upbringing because of no homeland.

LoL, aint's that right. I'm sure somehow that throwing acid on each other's faces because they -reject- sexual advances is also Israel's fault. I mean come on, these people can't even govern themselves in a civilized manner. I'm more than happy that Israel provides them with a good example of what a true democracy is.

And it's funny that the anti-Israel gang here tries to justify the palestinian's current actions with any excuse they can muster, even if they have to dig it out from the 19th century.

[edit on 13-11-2006 by laiguana]

Originally posted by laiguana
I'm more than happy that Israel provides them with a good example of what a true democracy is.

Same source as in the beginning of this thread

In Israel, an amendment to the Equal Rights for Women Law was passed in March 2000. The amendment deals with, inter alia, equal social rights for women in all spheres of life: the right of women over their bodies, protection against violence and trafficking, and representation for women in the public sector. The equality proposed by this law extended to all spheres of life except family life. Issues of marriage and divorce continued to be exclusively within the jurisdiction of the religious courts, be they Jewish, Christian, Muslim, or Druze. These courts controlled women's lives and their right to administer their lives. For example, under these religious courts, women did not have equal access to divorce. According to the Israel Women's Network, thousands of Jewish women continued to be a gunot, "chained" women whose husbands refused to divorce them. Mevoi Satum (Impasse), an Israeli organization dedicated to helping a gunot, estimated that over 97 percent of men who deny their wives a divorce were physically abusive.

Yes, laiguana I agree. I love true democracy.


[edit on 13-11-2006 by yanchek]

I don't understand how your source would justify that actions of palestinians?

Equal Rights for Women Law was passed.

Isn't that what a democracy does? To progress in a civilized manner. Where was the last time Palestinians tried to pass anything in favor of women's rights?

And you're deviating from the topic anyway by trying to point out Israel's faults which aren't even borderline to the atrocities committed in Islamic societies against women and children.

Originally posted by yanchek

Yes, laiguana I agree. I love true democracy.

That was a well done precison placed foot in his mouth. What do you expect from someone who thinks the 1950's & 60s was the 19th century.

Nice catch that keyhole concentrated on only the Palestinians conveniently while the article mentioned both peoples.

Well thank God we took the steam out of the sails of these people who would have a "Democracy" to match that of Israels idea of Democracy. It was beginning to become dangerously close to it. Walls, House razings, racial inequality, control of the press, assasination, sabotage, constant state of war, high security monitoring of its citizens,alienation of neighboring countries,land grabbing,spying on your allies and a concentration on weapons build up. Wow what a government to admire. Might as well say the Nazis were a fine example of a government too then.

I agree that this sort of treatment is completely unjustified and backward. We may have done it in the past (although not to same degree in recent history) but hay isn’t it funny? The further backward in time you go the more backward we become.

But I disagree with laiguana that Israel provides much of an example to the Palestinians. Fact is if they owned all of what is now Israel (like they did 58 years ago) or if they had been properly compensated for the land that was taken from them, or if they hadn’t been made to suffer so much hardship thanks to various Israeli policies (right up to today’s of sanctions, occupation, and denial of tax money, plus restricted trade) then the Palestinians would be richer and so probably also less backward.

Of course I'm not denying Israel has its reasons. For starters Israel belongs to Israel because the U.N ruled back in 1948 that 3.5% of Palestine’s population should be rewarded 50% of the land, because it was there’s 2000 years ago and Europe had just done a Holocaust; and so putting the Jewish homeland there suited both them and us.
But despites Israel’s reasons the Palestinians are right to think they would be better without them.

But the radical fundamentalist culture of the Palestinians is also a problem too. Not is it increased by poverty it also causes its own poverty. It does it in two ways…
Firstly by literally keeping the Palestinians backward through things like not educating your woman so you’ve got the same costs of running your population but about half the capacity to do it.
Secondly by occasionally reckoning peace agreements (although I think its fair to say both sides do it; as there is often something like a terrorist assassination attempt, that sparks a suicide bombing, which breaks a ceasefires and returns both sides to war again).

History Shows Where Evolution Was Deformed…
I think without (namely) America and Israel’s interference the pro-Western, secular Ba’thists would have taken over much of the Middle East and forced them to be civilised by throwing those who refused where they belong (in mass graves).
Saddam Hussein or someone else would have done this, as when you think about it those who hold onto backward beliefs also increase their own poverty hence increasing their own vulnerability to invasion from a Secular Arab man like Saddam.
But main the reason why Ba’thist ideology has been resisted by the United States is not because it threatens us, but because it threatens to make the Arabs too rich; and therefore in too much of a position to attack Israel.
Ironic thing is it’s now the fundamentalists who look poised to unite the Middle East.

The Cure…
I now it doesn’t sound very civilised but the only way the people in Palestine who abuse woman can be dealt with is by education and to bring this some need to go in mass graves. Authoritarianism to the authoritarian is what I say (harsh but surely reasonable) (or if not then practical).
Right now nobody is too worried about education (or dealing with the fundamentalists from within), war instead is the priority along with dealing with daily poverty. Hence the extremists are having a feel day like unattended mice in a grain barn.

Alien…
Israel is post the need for a Ba'thist government. Because of that they are not much of an example to the Palestinians (kind of too sophisticated) (if you know what I mean). Therefore Israel is quite alien; especially as it is part of the Palestinians backward problem (which history inevitably shows, on many occasions it is). I mean without Israel the Palestinians would ether be different; or instead conquered by a civilising yet brutal fellow Arab force; something (we sadly in the name of protection) have tried hard to limit and exterminate.

lol

Weakest attempt yet from you to say more bad things about arabs/palestinians.

Lets take a look at Israel and how it treats women :

In Israel, 200,000 women may be abused every year

JANET SILVER GHENT
Bulletin Staff

JERUSALEM -- It could be a typical middle-class Israeli home.

A Fisher-Price farm sits on the living room floor, laundry hangs outside, children race in and out and in a homey kitchen downstairs, a mother prepares eggs for her two young boys.

But a television screen on the living room wall warns residents against approaching visitors. And the 12 women residents and their 25 children -- many of them emigres -- are forbidden to leave at night. Several years ago, when one woman walked out, against advice, to meet her husband, he killed her.

Domestic violence in Israel is on the rise. Approximately 200,000 Israeli women are battered each year, according to the Israel Women's Network. Some 40,000 of them reach emergency wards. Last year, 15 of these victims died.

Only about 2,000 women file charges or seek refuge in such facilities as the Jerusalem Shelter for Battered Women, which serves some 70 women and 100 children each year. The facility, one of 11 such shelters in Israel, collaborates with the Hadassah Medical Organization which forwards patients in need of housing. Four of the shelters are in Jerusalem.

www.jewishsf.com...

And also lets not forget the love that jews also have for women. Oh yeah and here is a documentry on Israel kidnapping and sex slavery of women :
video.google.com...

Israel a Human Trafficking Haven
Wednesday, August 18, 2004

E-MAIL STORY RESPOND TO EDITOR PRINTER FRIENDLY VERSION Story tools
sponsored by

TEL AVIV, Israel — Human trafficking (search) is turning into a real problem in ]b
Israel, where law enforcement officials say women are bought and sold into the indentured servitude of the sex industry.

The women in question are usually from the former Soviet Union (search) and are traded by the Russian mob (search). The same Bedouins who smuggle weapons into Israel bring the women up through the Egyptian desert, oftentimes with a load of weapons.

"It's a kind of meat market. It's very brutal — most of this kind of auction," said Gadi Eshed of the Israel Police.

Thinking they are escaping the harsh conditions of home, a reported 3,000 prostitutes each year come to Israel. Their fist experience in the Holy Land is a forced march across the Egyptian desert, crossing the Israeli border through routes used to smuggle weapons and drugs.

www.foxnews.com...

I guess most people don't have any problem with the jews in Israel doing this type of behaviour but oh no the 111Mooooslims111??!!!!111 1111Ayyraaaaabs!!!!!!1111 should be the only ones targeted.

Let's see how the rest of this thread goes. I already know the outcome. The original thread starter will turn around and say "I'm against anybody who hurts women even Israel" or some other backtracking rubbish to cover his backside.

Fact is people love to pick out each and every single problem the arabshave. If a Arab sneezes in a way which people don't like they will make it there hobby to condem and target that Arab.

Don;t get me wrong i'm not supporting abuses against women in Palestine what i'm saying is don't act as if Palestinians are somehow bad people and the jews in Israel are the becon of light for humanity when they are just as bad or in fact even worser considering the claim to be "protectors of human rights and the only democracy in the middle east".


.


[edit on 14-11-2006 by iqonx]

If you want to compare Israel and Palestinians side by side, Israel still beats them by a long shot in women's rights.
Now I'm not defending Israel as being perfect, but at least in Israel women can go to court and make complaints about the current judicial system that should oppress them. And it's being done as we speak. Women in Israel are allowed to vote and go to schools without the fear of having their own country men bomb them. They are able to hold their own jobs and businesses.
In Palestinian society the concept of women's rights has been degraded to the point it's not even spoken of. They can't vote, go out in public without an escort or burkas lest they are beaten or put to death. There isn't even a system put in place to defend their basic rights without the intervention of other nations or organizations. And because many Palestinans still use the literal interpretations of the Quran as means of justice it is highly unlikely that they will ever gain a women's right movement there anytime soon.
Now you can blame Israel all you want on Palestinian's mistreatment of women and children for that matter. But the truth is that the majority of all Islamic societies are oppressive to women and girls. It's where honor killings are the norm. Where getting a basic education is proven difficult. When was the last time you heard of a Palestinian woman going to court to defend her rights?

a few sources:
www.worldandi.com...
www.jihadwatch.org...
www2.jrf.org...
www.bluestarpr.com...

I think this is silly. Before there are any women's rights or children's rights or gay rights or animal rights there should be one fundamental rights, righted.

Human rights.

The right to exist.

Tell that to both sides. They're both denying each other that. What right have they?

Beyond the green line
There was a part of Johannesburg that most residents of the apartheid-era city never saw. By the 1970s, the bulk of the black population was already forced out under the Group Areas Act, which defined living areas by race. The Sophiatown neighbourhood, once a thriving corner of black life, was bulldozed and replaced by rows of dreary bungalows for whites. But several hundred thousand black people remained in Alexandra township, close to Johannesburg's most affluent neighbourhood, Sandton. The traffic out of Alexandra was one-way. Its residents left each day to work in the mines and shops or to clean homes in Sandton. Whites rarely ventured the short drive off Louis Botha avenue into the overcrowded, often squalid, unpaved back streets of an Alexandra deprived of a decent water supply, adequate schools and refuse collection.

The contrast between West and East Jerusalem is not as stark, but the disparities between Jewish and Arab neighbourhoods are underpinned by attitudes, policies and laws similar to those used against Johannesburg's black population. Most of Jerusalem's Jews never cross the "green line" - the international border that divided the city until 1967 - and many of those that do go only as far as the Wailing Wall to pray. If more Israelis were to travel deeper into the city they claim as their indivisible capital, they would encounter a different world from their own, a place where roads crumble, rubbish is left uncollected and entire Palestinian neighbourhoods are not connected to the sewage system.

According to the Israeli human rights group, B'Tselem, Jerusalem's Jewish population, who make up about 70% of the city's 700,000 residents, are served by 1,000 public parks, 36 public swimming pools and 26 libraries. The estimated 260,000 Arabs living in the east of the city have 45 parks, no public swimming pools and two libraries. "Since the annexation of Jerusalem, the municipality has built almost no new school, public building or medical clinic for Palestinians," says a B'Tselem report. "The lion's share of investment has been dedicated to the city's Jewish areas."

The Guardian

To view full storey click Here

Being an occupied people might contribute to the cycle of abuse at home. That's certainly not a phenomena unique to Palestine, where women do enjoy quite a bit of freedom compared to some other places.

Lot's of women simply smother their female babies. They must come to view it as a relief for both themselves and the children.

Here in North America, feminists are only derided with scorn. In many parts of the world, they're raped to death.

Israel, true democracy! You GOT to be kidding, my god, please tell me you are kidding...

You know, I wont even bother going through the long long list of CRIMES the Zionist leaders have perpetrated not just on Arabs, but their OWN people. If cant get passed the lies and manipulations spoonfed to you by your media, and look at the actual details of the history of the Israel/Palastinian conflict, and see the horrors and suffering that the Arabs had to endure because of Zionist racism, then your opinions are meaningless.

Here is a neat video for you ones who seek truth.

Zionists War Crimes (Genocide in Palestine)

NAMASTE ADONAI