This document represents a guidebook for the humanitarian sector. This guidebook offers real and practical guidance for identifying and addressing the differing needs and situations of women, girls, boys and men for the humanitarian sectors operating in the Gaza Strip. Understanding gender differences, inequalities and capacities improves aid effectiveness and ensures that the assistance corresponds to the international legal framework for humanitarian response.
This guidebook aims to provide actors in Gaza with guidance on gender analysis, planning and actions to ensure that the needs, contributions and capacities of women, girls, boys and men are considered in all aspects of humanitarian response. It also offers checklists to assist in monitoring gender equality programming. The guidelines focus on major cross-cutting issues and areas of work in the early response phase of emergencies. The guidebook is also a useful tool to make sure gender issues are included in needs assessments, contingency planning and evaluations. It can be used as a tool to mainstream gender as a cross-cutting issue within sectors/ clusters. If used correctly, this guidebook will help promote the ultimate goal of protecting and promoting the human rights of women, girls, boys and men in the context of humanitarian action as well as advance the goal of gender equality.
The report exposes different forms of violence, in the occupied Palestinian territory, as revealed in women’s own narratives. It explores the conditions of their abuse as well as the coping strategies they use in their efforts to maintain their families’ well being, but which also compromises them due to the absence of realistic alternative options. Although women’s voices reflect the intensity and complexity of the multiple oppressions they experience, at the same time, they also reveal the power of their agency. Interviews with different stakeholders in the struggle to combat violence against women, including the Ministry of Social Affairs (MoSA), the Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MoWA), the Ministry of Interior (MoI), the police, family protection units, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), women’s organizations and shelters, have exposed the concerns, worries, problems and future strategies that, on the whole, illustrate stakeholder commitment to eradicating VAW, yet also point to structural and organizational weaknesses in efforts to do so.
The Standing Operating Procedures detail the minimum procedures for prevention and response to GBV and for CP. They also present more comprehensive prevention and response interventions. They indicate which organizations and/or institutions are responsible for actions in the four main response sectors - health, psychosocial support, law/ justice and security. They are designed to be used together with existing resources related to prevention and response to GBV and CP.
