The Service Unit provides professional social counselling and legal services for Palestinian women victims of violence who otherwise have nowhere to turn.

In the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), where the Israeli Occupying Forces are not held accountable to international human rights or humanitarian law, Palestinian women are more vulnerable to gender-based violence and threats of violence at the hands of their own patriarchal society. The entitlement to act violently with impunity becomes appropriated by individuals in the family and in society at large, whose traditional powers of authority are threatened by the devastating economic, political, and social effects of the Occupation. In this context, Palestinian women become the symbols of their authority, often subject to their frustrations by violent means.

Since WCLAC’s establishment, the Service Unit has provided social counselling, legal aid, and legal representation for thousands of women victims of violence, or potential victims of femicide. Through its legal work, the Service Unit highlights discrimination against women in Palestinian law and aims to amend these laws to integrate principles of gender equality.

The largest of WCLAC’s units, the Service Unit is composed of a cadre of full-time and part-time social workers and lawyers who undertake the following activities:
• Provision of direct legal and social services.
• Direct advocacy in courts, schools, and other locations as needed.
• Training of local professionals from NGOs and government offices - including civil and religious courts - on feminist principles and methods for serving threatened women.
• Community-level education and awareness-raising for women and men on the oppression of women, women’s rights, and human rights in general; awareness workshops in schools and universities, and with groups of women concerning women’s rights, violence prevention, gender roles and cultural practices that negatively affect the lives of Palestinian women.

Another important component of the Service Unit’s work is the running and management of an emergency shelter for women victims of violence and abuse, which was opened by WCLAC staff in 2005 and which serves women and their children from all over the West Bank.