The International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women falls on November 25. This day was designated by the United Nations to increase awareness of the fact that women throughout the world are subject to physical, emotional, sexual and economic violence inside and outside their homes. By virtue of this day, the UN seeks to echo public opinion on the phenomenon and emphasize that violence against women is a violation of basic human rights and the result of discrimination and inequality still common between women and men.
The Office of the Ombudsman repeatedly encounters complaints relating to violence in the family. In one case, the mother of six children from one of the Bedouin settlements in the south of the country complained that the Department for Social Services in the settlement in which she lived was not dealing with her claims of violence at the hands of the father of the family against her and her children.
Following the intervention of the Office of the Ombudsman, suitable accommodation was found for the complainant and her children, outside the settlement in which they had been living. Furthermore, the Office was informed that the family would continue to be assisted and supported as necessary.
Last August, a special audit report was published (in Hebrew) - Israel Police's handling of illegal possession of weapons and of shooting incidents in settlements in Arab society and in mixed settlements. This report disclosed that the number of victims of violence in Arab society from the year 2000 to November 2017 was 1,236, men and women. According to Police data, from 2014 to 2016 (end of October) 30 Arab women were murdered, comprising 42% of all the women murdered in Israel during the same period. It should be emphasized that the percentage of Arab women murdered doubled their percentage of the overall population (four out of ten women murdered were Arabs). From the start of 2017 until November of the same year, ten Arab women lost their lives through violent events.