Female inmates in the correction and rehabilitation centres of the West Bank are battling with their mental health due to the lack of strong family and community ties and the harsh realities of violence they have faced. To address these challenges, the Ministry of Social Development (MoSD) organized a specialized training programme for counsellors, with the support of the Sawasya Programme through UN Women Palestine.

Ilham Edaes, a 28-year-old health worker in the West Bank, Palestine has been back to work, every day, since May, serving the hardest-to-reach communities through a mobile clinic that offers breast cancer screening. Edaes has a five-year-old son, Majd, who is growing up watching his parents share childcare and domestic chores – an unusual occurrence in the region, where domestic and unpaid care work is largely seen as women’s work.

More than 700 young Palestinians have received leadership and gender-sensitivity training and several have collectively drafted an alternative constitution that challenges the status quo.