Women of the Sun is a grassroots Palestinian movement striving to improve women’s lives in the West Bank and Gaza, and has teamed up with a feminist Israeli group to try to breathe new life into the dormant peace process.
“I have a daughter, 16, and two boys, 18 and 14. I want them to live a better life than I have. I’m not thinking only of my daughter, but of the whole community,” says Reem Hjajara as we sit down to drink tea in Beit Jala.
Hjajara, 40, is founding director of Women of the Sun, a new Palestinian feminist civil society and peace advocacy group.
Co-director Layla Sheikh, 45, translates into English for Hjajara and Maram Zoual, 30. Even through the translation, it is clear that all three women are articulate yet speak carefully, sometimes seeming to consult with one another.
“We want to be honest and open,” Sheikh explains, “but we also have to be careful because there are people in Palestinian society who do not approve of what we do – not of our feminist work and not of our partnership with Women Wage Peace [the Israeli feminist pro-peace organization set up in 2014]. But as women, as mothers and as Palestinians, we must speak our truth.”
