Conflict Resolution begins collecting signatures for a code of honour against the killing of women in the country's governorates

Nablus, Publication and Information Unit:

The Palestinian Center for Democracy and Conflict Resolution has begun the campaign to collect signatures for the code of honour against the killing of women in the country's governorates, amid national and institutional consensus on the need to stop all forms of killing and abuse against women.

The psychologist Wurud Yassin from the Conflict Resolution Center commented: "It came to our Centre's attention that the phenomenon of killing women on various grounds increased in 2013, so we held a series of workshops and meetings with decision-makers and civil society to express our rejection of such behaviour, which destroys human life."

Yassin explained that the Conflict Resolution Center's partners are currently supporting the collection of signatures for the code of honour, which began at the start of this October and continues until the end of next November, within the activities of the campaign for securing Palestinian women's rights for 2013.

On the legal dimensions of the document, the lawyer at the Conflict Resolution Center, Sahar Abu Salha, said: "Some of the document's clauses call for enacting a Palestinian penal code that recognises the principle of equality and justice for women, in order to ensure fairness for women and protect them from any assault on their natural right to life."

Abu Salha praised the continuing efforts of all the ministries, organisations and official and unofficial centres taking part in this matter to give women their right to live in dignity and to obtain the rights provided for in the Basic Law, and to reduce the killing of women, particularly killing on grounds of family honour, as she put it.

It is worth noting that the Conflict Resolution Center supervises the signing of the code of honour against the killing of women in partnership with the coalition of the campaign for securing Palestinian women's rights, in which a number of ministries and civil society organisations take part, namely the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Women's Affairs, the Ministry of Interior, the High Judicial Council, the Office of the Chief Islamic Justice, the Najdeh Association for the Development of Palestinian Women and the Family Defence Society.