www.al-maqdese.org

Monthly Newsletter Issued By: Al-Maqdese for Society Development - in Arabic, English, and Italian

In this issue:

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«Promotion of peace opportunities through ending exploitation against women’s rights in East Jerusalem-gender equality»

• Introduction

• Project’sachievement.

• StoryofaWomanfromJerusalem:

• TheProblemofPayDifferences

betweenMenandWomenInItaly

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Introduction

Al-Maqdese for Society development aims to defend the rights of Palestinian people living in east Jerusalem, through monitoring and documenting the Israeli violations, and in this project, we focus on the Israeli violations of women’s rights.

In this issue we will provide the reader with the previous achievements of the Gender Equality project through 2011, in addition to that, we will shed light on the right of residency to Palestinian women in East Jerusalem through providing an adequate environment that saves her from external threats, especially that women are the core of society and family, regardless of their religion, origin, or customs.

We will also introduce a story of a Palestinian woman who lives in Jerusalem and couldn’t get a family unification.

This project doesn’t only talk about Palestinian women, but also it provides us with reports and stories from Italy through the partnership with the European Center of studies and Initiatives. In this context, CESIE provided us with a report related to the problem of inequality in wages and pay in Italy.

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Project’sAchievement:

The implementation of Gender Equality project which is funded by the European Union started on 1/1/2011, it contains a number of activities that vary between awareness sessions, training sessions and issuing publications. These activities aim to raise the awareness of Jerusalemite people about the Israeli violations related to women in East Jerusalem.

First: 23 psychological and preventive therapy courses were conducted for Jerusalemite women (individual and collective), these women mainly suffered from house demolition or faced this threat.

Second: Planning workshops were conducted for Jerusalemite women in partnership with Bimkom- the Israeli partner.

Third: Workshops related to raising the awareness of Jerusalemite women about their social and economic rights related to the Israeli and international laws.

Forth: A 4 days training was conducted for feminine organizations, it addressed the documentation of social violations and the related international and local laws. By the end of this training, attendants received certificates.

Fifth: Issuance of the first book of stories that presented suffering stories of Jerusalemite women that suffered from house demolition and the psychological impact of demolition on their lives. The second book will be issued very soon; it images stories of women who suffered to get a family unification. These books are available in four languages (Arabic, English, Italian and Hebrew)

Sixth: Issuance of 5 bimonthly newsletters that cover subjects related to women’s lives and their suffering, and the local and international laws and covenants related to these issues.

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Seventh: Design of two wall paintings that describe the suffering of Palestinian women in east Jerusalem.

Eighth: Issuance of one analytical study related to the situations of Jerusalemite women who have been displaced and suffered from house demolition.

At the beginning of next year, the upcoming activities will be continued.

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“I never thought of leaving this country, and will never think about this! This is our land, and we will never give it up! We’ve had worse time before, and despite of that we stayed! We will not let them enjoy living here. Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine and it’s our duty to defend it.”

This was the conclusion of a dialogue that took place in an apartment in one of Shufat’s Camp neighborhoods. In this apartment, a husband and wife live with 5 of their children, the oldest is 20 years old, and the youngest is only 2 years old. The family didn’t live happily ever after, they suffered and still suffer. Some may think that this story is one of the ordinary stories; however, only those who actually went through it can understand how cruel life is!

StoryofaWomanfromJerusalem:

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StoryofaWomanfromJerusalem

Mrs. S. Kh. got married in 1991 to a Palestinian citizen who holds the Palestinian green ID, which means a limited access and restrictions on movement more than anything else. All what she wanted was to unify her family, she started the necessary procedures directly after her marriage. She moved between Jerusalem and the West Bank for some period of time and from one house to another. In 1994, she applied for a family unification after giving birth to three of her kids, and all what she could until that time was the residency permits for her husband until 1998, after that, the Israeli authorities suspended his residency, and that’s why she had to move to the west bank for another period of time…

In 2001, she had another baby; unfortunately, he suffered from a disability in his legs and excessive amounts of the cerebrospinal fluid in his brain that didn’t give much time to live, because he couldn’t get the necessary treatment which wasn’t available at her living place.

She decided to start her fight against the Israeli institutions; she started from the Israeli National Insurance Institution where they told that she has to prove that she had been living in Jerusalem for a year, and so she did. After that, she went to the Israeli Ministry of Interior, where they asked to prove that she had been living in Jerusalem for two years, she face lots of troubles and obstacles. Although she proved her residence in Jerusalem, each time she went there, she was told that her papers and documents are missing. She never gave up and she had to pay a lot of money, and she had to stand in long rows without knowing if she will have the chance to enter or not!

Her eldest son was 14 years old when she got the unification document, and she couldn’t register him in her ID, hall he could get is visit permits, he can’t even work in the Israeli labor Market because he doesn’t have a work permit. He didn’t continue his studies and didn’t attend college, he does nothing but staying at home because he fears being captured working outside the camp, where he can’t even find work.

Until 2008, they had very bad economic situation that didn’t enable them to appoint a lawyer, so she had to handle all the effort for sending and receiving unification documents. Sometimes she had to leave her little children alone at home from the very early morning, and most times her old daughter had to stay with them, and that’s why she couldn’t attend her school some days, and she had finally to leave it forever.

Later, she had to head to the ministry of Interior three months before the expiry date of her husband’s permit. She suffered a lot in each visit, and she had severe pain in her back and her legs so she had to stay at

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home for a couple of days. One day, when she was pregnant with her little girl, she left her house in a very early hour to make sure that she can reach the entrance point in the ministry, but that didn’t happen, she stayed standing for 9 hours and after that completely collapsed. She was moved to her house which made her stay in bed for two days.

On the financial level, she received ensure of income which doesn’t exceed 1800 NIS, in addition to 7000 NIS because of the disability of her child, and she was able to renew her house with some of this money, which made the employees of Israeli National Insurance rethink of the amount of money she receives as income insurance. On that day, her husband came back from his first day work and was seen by these employees who claimed that he already has his work.

All of her problems can be solved, but her main concern now is her eldest son who doesn’t hold the Jerusalem ID, and all he can obtain is visits permits. Moreover, none of the employers that he tried to work with accepted to apply for him for a work permit, because of the high costs they will have to afford.

Despite of that, she still has hope, and she is sure that nothing will stays the same in the future , as nothing stayed the same in the past, and who knows how will things turn to in the coming years!

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The Problem of Pay Differences betweenMenandWomenInItaly

A report from this WEF 2010, states that Italy is at the 121st place (out of 134) on the wage parity, at the 87th place regarding labor participation and at the 97th place on opportunities for women to take leadership positions. Thus Italy lost 7 places since 2008 and is now the last country in Europe.”This is an area where much remains to be done because we have one of the lowest female employment rate and the percentage of senior positions is minimal and the data is clear, unfortunately, the new data of Global Gender Gap Report 2010 World Economic Forum is worse than last year” (Ms Tarantolla, Director of the Bank of Italy).

Only 45% of Italian women work outside of their home (we have to notice than the birthrate in Italy is the lowest in Europe, 1.3 children/ women), and they earn 20% less than men -Newsweek 22/11/2010-.

The Bank of Italy calculates than if the country would reach the Lisbon objective of 60% women participating in Labor market, the PIL of Italy would increase of 7%.

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