Ref: 31/2017 

In participation of 31 attendees, 18 of whom were females of the Youth Council Against Women’s Violence , representing 12 CBOs working in Rafah, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) concluded on Wednesday, 24 August 2017, a training course in the field of women’s’ rights/ human rights. The 25-hour course was held in the office Hope and Peace Foundation for Children in Rafah during 20-24 August 2017.

The program of the course included an introduction to human rights, the International Bill of Human Rights (the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights); the Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women; Universal Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women; gender issues, the rule of law, independence of judiciary, and Mechanisms of Monitoring and Documenting Human Rights Violations.

A team of PCHR’s trainers supervised the training sessions. The team included Majedah Shehadah, a Researcher at PCHR’s Women’s Unit; Sharif Abu Nassar, lawyer at PCHR’s Legal Unit; Mohammed ‘Atallah, a trainer at PCHR; Bassam al-Aqra’, director of PCHR’s Training Unit; and Abdul Halim Abu Samra, PCHR’s Public Relations officer in Khan Younis.

At the end of the course, PCHR organized a closing ceremony.  Abdul Halim Abu Samra stressed PCHR’s efforts exerted on the long term to disseminate the culture of  violence against women in the Palestinian society among the youth volunteering in the Civil society organizations and youth groups. He also highlighted PCHR’s role in defending women’s’ rights and raising awareness of their rights as a preamble to implementing them in reality.

Bilal Khair Eden, Coordinator of the Youth Council,  thanked PCHR for its continuous efforts in defending the human rights and its effective contribution in disseminating the culture of  violence against women and respecting the human rights among the youth. He also demanded to continue the coordination and collaboration with PCHR in the future to what serves the women’s rights.

Bassam al-Aqraa’ stressed that the “The relationship between PCHR and Rafah’s Youth Council and the participants will not end at the end of the course, and should be strengthened afterwards. He also said that PCHR’s doors will always be open to participants in order to organize more activities in the future in other subjects and  benefit from PCHR’s experience regarding what they have learnt, particularly that the Women’s Rights Unit provides legal assistance and awareness services to women in the Gaza Strip.

The participants  indicated that the course raised their awareness of women’s rights  and was characterized with its rich topics and contributed to raising participants’ awareness of human rights; trainers’ efficiency and various and interactive training methods used in the course.”

At the end of the course, all participants received certificates.