The Center for Human Rights and Democracy Media "SHAMS" believes that in spite of the massive developments that the world has witnessed in the field of anti-violence against women and in legitimizing their rights to empower them, women around the world still suffer unfair practices and physical and psychological harm, women still suffer from persecution and oppression and aggression, caused by non-equal power relations between men and women due to absence of encouraging cultural and social heritage and the dominance of harmful habits and backward traditions that causes the widespread of the high rates of poverty, unemployment, ignorance and illiteracy among women.
The Center calls upon governments and nations to assume their responsibilities in ensuring that women and girls rights and services on an equal basis. This should also include progress in the elimination of violence based on gender, as violence against women is widespread in various parts of the world; this violence is not only a violation of human rights, but also an important factor in preventing the realization of the rights of women and girls in Security, housing, health, food, education and participation, where millions of women find themselves prisoners of violence, which remains one of the most systematic heinous violations of human rights that gravely threaten women
"SHAMS" Center reminding that Palestinian women in the West Bank and Gaza Strip lived all or most of their lives under the Israeli belligerent occupation, and have been facing a challenge to establish their rights, Palestinians women living under Israeli military occupation which controls every aspect of their lives, and live for decades under the yoke of Israeli occupation have enormously deprived from the development opportunities as well as Palestinian people in general which increased level of violence and discrimination against Palestinian women in particular.
"SHAMS" center Emphasizes that violence in times of war is not inevitable and _ can be avoided if concerned parties respected the international humanitarian law which is definitely not the case in the occupied Palestinian territories, the occupation has never abide by the international human rights law and the international humanitarian law, despite its signatory on the said conventions in addition to Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. Israel has consistently denied its duty to apply the UN human rights treaties that it has ratified for the West Bank and Gaza Strip, also consistently rejected the applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention. However, Israel stands alone in its contention. The relevant bodies and the international community restating repeatedly the applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention and international human rights alike, and as such, Israel has caused the deaths of more than 150 women in the Palestinian al-Aqsa Intifada, and wounded hundreds of women in the last few years.
