Queen Rania Visits NCFA Workshops and Launches “Violence Against Women” Partnership Project

(Office of Her Majesty, Queen Rania – Press Department) As an advocate for protecting the rights of women and children, Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah continued to push for institutionalizing family protection issues as she visited a training workshop held by the National Council for Family Affairs for the Ministries of Education, Social Development and Justice.

During the workshop, Queen Rania noted that the protection of women and children must be prioritized stressing that “the family unit is the most important component of our society and we must work hard to protect our children and women”.

“We’re not only looking to conduct workshops, but are hoping to see concrete results that will produce highly qualified staff to deal with the issue of family violence,” said the Queen. Through the training, the NCFA aims to ensure that the protocols and procedures developed as part of the National Family Protection Framework are mainstreamed using a customized training manual for each ministry as part of the National Strategic Plan for Family Protection (NSPFP). The NSPFP was formulated to strengthen the current national efforts in decreasing the percentage of abused women through reinforcing anti–violence against women policies, improve the quality of detection of violence against women cases, and develop a network of outreach counseling to women victims.

Pointing out that violence against women and children is an affront to human rights, Queen Rania told those in attendance, “it is also your role to raise awareness about violence, and clarify that it is against our customs, religion, and laws.” Her Majesty also commended the role that counselors can play in tackling the issue.

Ninety practitioners from the Ministries of Education, Social Development and Justice targeting social workers, school counselors, judges and public prosecutors from the middle region took part in this workshop. More workshops will be held across the Kingdom for the relevant ministries.

Earlier, Monday, Queen Rania also launched the Private Sector Project for Women’s Health (PSP) partnership project to combat Violence Against Women (VAW).

The PSP’s partnership project, which involves the NCFA, the Queen Zein Al Sharaf Institute for Development (ZENID) and the Noor Al Hussein Foundation/ Institute for Family Health (NHF/IHF), was initiated to implement the key activities put forth in the National Strategic Plan for Family Protection (NSPFP).

During a meeting with the program directors and field workers of the partner institutions, Her Majesty underscored the importance of such a partnership, noting that the role of each organization is vital to ensure the institutionalization and sustainability in reducing family violence and raising public awareness of the sensitivities and traits associated with tackling the issue.

During the launching ceremony, a documentary was shown, illustrating the roles, responsibilities, programs and activities of each partner institution in coordinating the efforts of the relevant public, private and civil society institutions in the field, in line with the activities stipulated in the NSPFP.  

NCFA Secretary-General Jamil Smadi spoke of the Council's role as a partner that will work to encourage policy and decision makers to address VAW as a national priority, and conduct workshops for key decision makers at the Ministries of Social Development, Education, Health, Justice and Awqaf.

The USAID-funded PSP project, through its partners, represents a commitment to help create a favorable environment for the establishment of national programs, policies and legislation to address VAW.

As a partner in the project, the IFH has identified nine private hospitals throughout the country, and together with the Jordan Medical Council, will train their medical staff in VAW detection and referral.

ZENID will award competitive grants to six non-governmental organizations to expand their services to communities across Jordan. A referral system will be set up to link trained doctors with the outreach health workers of the Circassian Charity Association (CCA) and the General Union of Voluntary Societies (GUVS), so as to reach 42,000 women in their homes to raise their awareness; provide them with counseling sessions and direct those who are victims of violence to the appropriate referral centers and entities.

The PSP is a five-year project (2005-2010) with a mandate to improve the health of Jordanian women and families. The project aims to increase the availability of quality private sector health care services; knowledge and awareness of family planning; early detection of breast cancer and reduce domestic violence.