GANOUBIA HORA | Statement from the Feminist Organisations and Groups

25 November 2023

Statement from the Feminist Organisations and Groups

Usually, the global feminist movement is active during the sixteen-day campaign against Gender-Based Violence, which starts on the 25th of November, “the International Day of Eliminating Violence against Women,” and continues until “the Human Rights Day” on the 10th of December.

To remember the struggle of the “Mirabal sisters” against the dictatorship in the Dominican Republic in the 1960s, as they suffered arrest and abuse, which ended with their brutal assassination.

To remind us all that together, we will continue to adhere to the principles of human rights, feminist values, and international humanitarian laws, as they are the values and principles that govern us all and must be our path towards just and comprehensive peace, ending violence, and stopping the war machine despite the malfunction that we’ve all experienced recently from the behaviour of many Western governments and their abandonment of human rights conditions, and even providing undivided support for practices, violations, and crimes against humanity, just like their fellow dictatorial governments.

We emphasise, as feminist groups and organisations, that the harsh test we are going through increases our belief that human rights have not fallen but rather that governments and regimes which support systematic terrorism and the war trade at the expense of the lives of all women, men, and children for profits, those have fallen.

We assert our deep faith in the significance of human rights principles globally, as they are the resort against all forms of injustice, violation, and crimes, and they will remain our common ground for standing against all regimes and governments that terrorise their people, abuse them, and disregard violent practices to achieve political interests. We affirm that crimes against human rights do not have a statute of limitations. As long as there are free people, such as those whose news we followed and saw demonstrating to express their anger against all violations of human rights, apartheid, murder and genocide, and forced displacement, these people can put pressure on their governments and can bring all those who supported and committed these violations to international criminal courts and resort to the international humanitarian law.

We are active in the sixteen days in remembering the struggle of an indigenous people -occupied Palestine - against the Israeli occupation State, which claims to be an oasis of democracy in its geographical surroundings, and what the Israeli occupation is committing against all the people of Palestine and the residents of the Gaza Strip particularly, including genocide, systematic bombardment, killing, and forced displacement of more than Of 2 million people.

The feminist movement always believes that ending violence begins with dismantling the terminology and vocabulary loyal to violence, as words such as “conflict/dispute” and other weak/systematic words never express the reality of the current situation or the past and will not express the future either.

The core of the truth is that it’s war crimes committed by advanced military forces against unarmed civilians. Facts, estimates, and statistical figures issued by the United Nations and relevant organisations tell us that during a month and a half of war crimes, the Israeli occupation murdered more than 14,000 Palestinians, including nearly 5,000 children, until the Gaza Strip became a “graveyard for children” according to the description of the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Statistics indicate the displacement of more than a million Palestinians in an area that is the most densely populated in the world, where the Israeli occupation destroyed no less than 45% of the housing sector in Gaza and 51% of the educational facilities in the Strip ceased to function and to provide educational services because of the Israeli occupation bombardment, which resulted depriving 625,000 students of education. Combined with the absence of basic supplies and food and the risk of famine due to the lack of a sustainable flow of humanitarian aid from the Rafah border crossing, the International Labor Organization estimates that 390,000 people have lost their jobs due to the war since its beginning. The latest available statistics estimated the poverty rate in the Gaza Strip at 61% in 2020.

All of us, as organisations and groups, like all other people, women and men, are going through heavy days as a result of what is happening against the residents of the Gaza Strip.

Considering the above, the undersigned organisations and groups demand the following:

- It is necessary to adhere to human rights and international law and activate them against all human rights violators worldwide.

- The necessity of issuing a ceasefire resolution regarding the ethnic cleansing and genocide that is taking place against the Palestinian people.

- Stop the forced displacement of the residents of the Gaza Strip.

- Stop continuing to support the Israeli occupation unconditionally.

- To all people, put pressure on your governments and officials to pass a ceasefire resolution and oblige them to fund food and medical aid instead of financing weapons of war.

- Investigation into war crimes committed by the Israeli occupation since October 2023.

- To all international media outlets, it is necessary to use accurate terminology and words that express the crimes occurring, stop using language that is in the interest of the occupation authorities, and explain the context of the occupation. It is not a complex issue, as some claim.

New woman Foundation

The Woman and Memory Forum

Egyptian Woman Lawyers Foundation for Women’s Rights

El Nadeem Against Violence and Torture

ELnoon Foundation for family care

Arab women Organization of Jordan

Barah Aamen Organization

Tadwein for Gender Studies

Ganoubia Hora Organization

Gohoud to support human rights defenders.

Center for Egyptian Women’s Legal Assistance

Egyptian Without Borders foundation