Ref: 35/2021

Date: 29 June 2021

On Monday, 28 June 2021, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) started a training program on the mechanisms for preparing and writing reports submitted to international committees “Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) as a model.” Twenty-five members representing 12 civil society organizations operating in the field of defending women’s rights will attend the 50-hour program that will take place over the course of 10 days.

This training program comes within a project on “Women’s rights: intervention and protection means to combat violence against women,” which is implemented by PCHR in partnership with the Representative Office of Norway to the Palestinian Authority and aims to raise participants’ awareness on the general concepts of the international human rights system as well as the most significant human rights conventions signed by the State of Palestine.

The training program also aims at building and strengthening the capacity of civil society staff, particularly on CEDAW in order to promote the Convention, disseminate its provisions, and contribute to its effective application within society and to change the misconceptions surrounding it. Furthermore, the training would enhance CSOs’ role in developing society and developing staff’s capacities on the mechanisms for writing, presenting, and discussing reports submitted to international committees, and educating them on the periodic review mechanisms as part of States’ obligations under international conventions.

The training program is divided into two main components:

1. Introductory training on the international human rights law and conventions signed by the State of Palestine, as well as an analytical study of the provisions of CEDAW, the observations on it, and the committee concerned with it.
2. Practical training on the mechanisms for preparing, writing, presenting and discussing reports, whether they were official or shadow reports.

Abdul Halim Abu Samra, Head of PCHR’s Training Unit, opened the training program, welcoming the participants from various women’s rights organizations and CSOs.  He stressed the importance of this unique training program that PCHR organized for the second consecutive year to provide CSOs’ staff with knowledge about international conventions and UN human rights bodies. He also highlighted PCHR’s important role in building capacities on the

techniques of preparing reports on the human rights situation and following them up with various international bodies. He also called upon participants to take advantage of this training program and apply it within their organizations.

Mona Shawwa, Head of PCHR’s Women’s Rights Unit welcomed the participants, explaining that the training course targets the member organizations in Women Civic Coalition- CEDAW as well as organizations interested in the field of advocacy campaigning on women’s rights, adding that this is the second similar training course conducted by PCHR as the last year’s course targeted 10 organizations, but this year it targets 12 organizations.  Shawwa highlighted the importance of holding similar training courses in building the capacities of CSOs to participate in writing shadow reports, particularly those relevant to CEDAW, which is supposed to be submitted in 2022.