Women's Affairs Center in Gaza initiated a series of awareness-raising workshops on the respect and protection of women's rights, forms of gender based violence, and ways of reducing it.

The 24 awareness-raising workshops target household men and women in marginalized areas in all Gaza governorates, and are carried out by 24 young male and female facilitators. These workshops come within the framework of "Promoting Respect and Protection of Women's Human Rights in the Gaza Strip" project, funded by Trocaire.

Generally, the project aims at sensitizing both women and men in the Gaza Strip on gender issues, gender equality, women's rights and violence against women, as well as contributing to achieving respect and protection to the rights of marginalized people and people vulnerable to human rights violations.

Samar Al Dreamly, Coordinator of Media Program at WAC, pinpointed the importance of holding these workshops as they are conducted by young men and women who had received various training sessions to improve their skills and experience in the field of violence, gender, and women's rights.

The workshops are carried out in marginalized areas of the Gaza Strip to enable and educate more than 500 household men and women on their rights and duties and to motivate them to play an effective role in reducing gender-based violence.

During the first workshops, some household women, especially in the southern governorates, expressed their contentment with all the information and facts they had received about their legal rights. They called for preparing additional legal and counseling workshops to enable them to claim their rights as stated in the law rather than according to traditions and customs that maintain the negative image of women.