ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an account of the efforts by the Palestinian women’s movement to advocate for greater sensitivity to gender differences in new civil legislation, particularly laws that affect women’s lives, such as the penal code and the family law. 1 It also deals with the effects of the barriers erected within the region and the fragmentation of the land by Israeli policies, and how women have coped with both. After introducing the background and the current socio-political, legal, economic, and human rights contexts of Palestinians, this analysis will address the constant violation of Palestinian women’s human rights; this violation is contingent upon the Israeli occupation, but is also a by-product of the divergent legal contexts in various areas where Palestinian women live, in particular of the non-existence of a coherent family law that can be unequivocally applied to all Palestinian women regardless of their religion or sect.
