General Union of Palestinian Women

The National Strategy for the Advancement of Palestinian Women

Strategic Objectives

1. Participating in the achievement of the Palestinian national legitimate rights: the right of return, self-determination and the right for an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.

2. Reviewing policies, laws, legislation's and decisions and ensuring that they are non discriminatory against women and that they adopt the principles of equality and equal      opportunities between men and women.

3. Providing information and a data base that help specify needs and obstacles and help in the assessment of achievements and in overcoming obstacles that hinder women's progress.

4. Involving women in the organized economic system and providing training and support for them.

5. Providing health care for women at all stages of their life.

6. Developing and modernizing Palestinian educational curricula within the framework of a unified national curriculum to prepare students to engage  in a democratic life in which equality prevails.

7. Generalizing and implementing compulsory education.  A basic school for every village and populated center  by the year 2000.

8. Acting with legislative bodies to raise the  minimal age for marriage to 18 years.

9. Protecting children from violence, discrimination and exploitation, providing their basic needs and giving special consideration to the conditions of the girl/child within
the family.

10. Urging the mass media to back the plans and policies geared towards the needs of both men and women in society.

11. Implementing developmental policies that aim at alleviating poverty of women.

12. Increasing the rate of women participants in decision making positions.

13. Developing the role of the General Union of Palestinian Women, in its capacity as representative of Palestinian women in Palestine and abroad, to form a frame work for all NGOs and to extend it and establish branches in every district of the country to reach to women in towns, villages, refugee and Bedouin camps.

 I. The Basis for The National Strategy for Palestinian Women:

The National Strategy for Palestinian women is based on:
1. The PLO National Palestinian Program which calls for the attainment of the Palestinian people's Right of Return, Self-determination and the establishment of a Palestinian State, Jerusalem as its capital.

2. The Declaration of Independence, promulgated by the PNC, in 1988 in Algiers that calls for gender equality in both rights and duties.

3. The Palestinian Women Rights Document declared by the General Union of Palestinian Women and ratified by the women's conference held in Jerusalem, August, 1994, and based on the International Convention on The Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women.

4. The Memorandum of Women's Demands raised by the General Union of Palestinian Women, in its capacity as the representative of all Palestinian women, to the Legislative Council on March 8,1997.

5. The outcome of the NGOs Forum and the Arab Minister's Conference held in August, 1996 in which the main priorities in fields of action for Arab women were defined according to Beijing's Platform of Action taking into consideration  the particularities of the situation  of Palestinian women.

6. Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

7. International Convention of the Rights of the Child.