Ramallah – Ma’an – Minister of Women’s Affairs, Mona Al-Khalili, stressed the importance of the contribution of civil society organizations in reviewing and enriching the international reports submitted by the State of Palestine in accordance with its obligations towards the agreements to which it has joined. This came at the opening of the second session to discuss the draft of the State of Palestine’s Beijing +30 report with civil society organizations, along with Maries Guimond, representative of UN Women, and Dr. Salma Al-Nims, senior official for social affairs and gender equality – ESCWA, today, Thursday, 9/5/ 2024 in the city of Ramallah, in the presence of representatives from civil society institutions, including women’s institutions and centers.

Minister Al-Khalili indicated that the fifteenth of this month marks the seventy-sixth anniversary of the Nakba, which comes in light of the war of extermination carried out by Israel, the occupying power, against our people in the Gaza Strip, and the unpre
cedented escalation in the West Bank. Al-Khalili said that this long-term occupation only believes in the doctrine of killing, destruction, ethnic cleansing, and displacement. She emphasized that women and children are at the forefront of the occupation’s goals.

Al-Khalili reviewed the importance of the State of Palestine submitting its report on the Beijing Platform (Beijing +30 Report) as a tool to highlight the progress made in implementing the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action thirty years after its adoption, which constitutes an action plan with a vision related to the empowerment of women, as the Ministry leads the comprehensive review process on The national level with all spectrums of institutional, official, civil and civil work and feeding it with the observations of all partners to provide an integrated report for the State of Palestine to be submitted to ESCWA and included in the Arab report and then the report of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, to be presented and its cont
ents and recommendations discussed at the Commission on the Status of Women at its 69th session in the year 2025. Al-Khalili stressed that the occupation, as always, constitutes the main obstacle to security, peace and development.

For her part, Gimond spoke about the importance of the Beijing Report as it is an opportunity to raise the voice of Palestinian women in international forums and to eliminate all obstacles facing them, explaining that the occupation has a major impact on women and girls in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, where it has escalated significantly, especially in the Israeli aggression on Gaza, with loss of protection, services, freedom and expression. expressed the opinion in addition to forced displacement, stressing that UN Women is working cooperatively and participatively to support the State of Palestine in preparing the report in partnership with the Ministry of Women’s Affairs.

In turn, Salma Al-Nims spoke about the importance of the Beijing +30 report in giving a compreh
ensive picture of the reality of Palestinian women, with all the measures they have taken to ensure justice and equality between the sexes, and the importance of the presence of civil society to review and add what can be nourished in order to prepare a comprehensive report for the State of Palestine that is more close to reality to face the future challenges of the state. And the region, explaining that ‘human rights and women’s rights are for the whole world and not for some peoples and not others.’

Amin Assi, Director General of Planning and Policies, also reviewed the national priorities and challenges for the next five years

In addition to presenting a presentation from the Ministry’s staff, the themes of comprehensive development, prosperity and decent work include the eradication of poverty and social protection, freedom from violence, stigma and stereotypes, participation and accountability, institutions that take into account the perspective of gender equality, peaceful societies in which no one is
marginalized, and preservation, protection and restoration of the environment.

Source: Maan News Agency