Access Denied: Palestinian Women's Access to Justice in the West Bank of the occupied Palestinian territory

The report presents the findings of a research initiated by UN Women in 2012 aims at closely examining the socio-political, legal and psychological factors that impact the access of Palestinian women to justice in the West Bank. By focusing on access to justice in the West Bank - with a specific focus on women victims of violence living in Area C and H2 - the report shed lights to the spatio-temporal, socio-legal, political and economic factors and ideologies to uncover hidden abuses and analyse policies and practices that hinder women's ability to access the prevailing legal systems in the West Bank and enjoy their rights to a secure and dignified life.

Findings clearly demonstrates the lack of trust of Palestinian women and men, victims/survivors, legal professionals, and services providers towards the justice systems in the West Bank and its ability to address women's needs or be attentive to women's hardships. The report reveals how a hybrid mix of old and new, gender-sensitive and gender-oppressive, formal and informal political and socio-legal sytems has failed to defend women and wider society, violating not only the rights of women to access justice, but also entrenching a gender-discriminatory structure and mores that enable the continued abuse of present and future generation of women.