ATFP Translates - 

Salam Fayyad’s Vision for Women’s Rights:
Simple but Hard to Achieve
 
By Rima Kitana Nezzal
Al Ayyam (translated by ATFP)
June 16, 2013
 
Was it really necessary for Palestinian women to publicly protest for one of their own to be put in charge of a ministry, or to organize a sit-in to protest the denial of their right to be included in cabinet positions in the Fifteenth Palestinian Authority Government? The percentage of women in significant government positions is only 12 percent. And indeed protests might now be the only available remedy for Palestinian women, since the demonstrations in Hebron suggested that street-level mobilization can, in fact, prove the shortest and most effective path to ensuring their inclusion and participation.
 
There is no doubt that the Thirteenth and Fourteenth governments of former Prime Minister Salam Fayyad were quite unique in the extent of their inclusion of women. More than 25 percent of his cabinet ministers were women. This was a matter of great pride to many Palestinians, and positioned them well, indeed near the top, in global indices of gender inclusivity in government. Certainly the level of female participation in the Palestinian cabinet under Fayyad was radically different than the rest of the Arab states, and indeed some other countries with a greater lead in human rights and democracy. Achieving progress on the level of political participation for Palestinian women was rooted in the founding principles of the Palestinian Authority. These, in turn, are informed by the secular ideas of the Palestine Liberation Organization. And they were brought together by Dr. Fayyad's intellectually and politically progressive perspective.
 
In societies lacking a clear consensus regarding the role of women – especially when they also have disputes regarding the essential foundations of their political systems -- the role of individual leaders acquires a unique importance in determining policies that shape these aspects of government.
 
Therefore, the remarkable participation of women in the Fayyad governments was not a matter of course or a mere coincidence, or the initiative of political parties or factions that chose women as their representatives. On the contrary, it was because of the pro-women policies and vision Fayyad professed and implemented on the ground and worked to embed in the culture of Palestinian governance. This was expressed through his appointment of professional women in critically important positions, including government spokesperson, Chair of the Palestinian stock exchange, and the Presidency of the vitally important Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. 
 
Fayyad's vision for promoting the role of women was also expressed through his political activities and the speeches that he gave at feminist events such as Women’s Day and events promoting the struggle against the violence and prejudice faced by women. Dr. Fayyad also improved the legal environment for women through important judicial reforms in Palestine, which allowed for greater democratization. They also promoted a climate of social change and laid the basis for a strong challenge to the exclusionary and discriminatory rhetoric of Salafists, and other forms of discrimination against women. 
 
Therefore we expect the new government of Prime Minister Dr. Rami Hamdallah to embrace and expand this vision, program and policies regarding the empowerment of women within the Palestinian governmental and institutional structure. We also expect it to continue to develop and promote a culture of inclusion and equality for women without submitting to the inherited social norms of an exclusionary culture. Nor should we surrender to prevailing, traditional value systems that slow and weaken the transformation of Palestinian society on gender equality, a goal that is in accordance with our Constitution and based on the principle of equal rights for all individual citizens.
 
We expect the new government, which has curtailed women’s participation, to compensate for the lack of their inclusion in the cabinet by at least taking other actions to ensure an improvement of their participation in other governmental institutions and structures. It must also address structural problems in the educational establishment, and especially the curriculum, which requires a thoroughgoing revision because it continues to recycle traditional, discriminatory and patriarchal ideas and images about gender roles, and men and women, in society.
 
The government must continue to pursue reform in the legal system, and pursue and address discrimination through the legal process. It should enact laws protecting women, including within the Family Law and Penal Code, both of which are long overdue for badly needed change. Moreover, this government must monitor its own agencies, and strictly implement the President's decision to end the practice of giving reduced sentences to those convicted of violent "honor crimes" against women, and considering such normative social expectations to be “mitigating circumstances.” We also need the new government to help pass laws protecting families from violence, and to implement executive orders to this effect that remain unfulfilled.
 
In short, the new government has to adopt a clear vision and rhetoric on women's rights— one that is simple but hard to achieve. The government must embrace a straightforward and comprehensive legal and political approach that empowers women, and that both secures their rights and holds them to their responsibilities. Women's participation in government cannot be a substitute, or compensation, for neglecting other crucial gender issues. All Palestinian women need to enjoy their full social, economic, and political rights, not because they constitute half of the population, but because this is an indispensable and integral element of the fundamental principles of human rights for all people.

American Task Force on Palestine - 1634 Eye St. NW, Suite 725, Washington DC 20006 - Telephone: 202-262-0017