Sama Aweidah

Sama Fayez Aweidah was born in Jerusalem on January 14, 1959. Her parents, Fayez Aweidah and Ruqiyya Nashashibi, had two daughters, Nadia and Dima, before her.

As the third daughter, her parents had hoped she would be born a boy, and they had planned on naming that boy Usama. While they were dismayed that she was born a girl, the smile that appeared on her face when she was two days old immediately won her father’s heart, and he decided to name her Sama, an unusual but symbolic name. As she describes it, “Sama defied Usama,”1 signifying that, already as a child, she was destined to triumph over the patriarchy.

The Aweidah family lived in the Palestinian neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, but shortly after Sama Aweidah was born, they moved from Jerusalem to Jerash in Jordan, because her father got a job there. Fayez remained a prominent figure in Aweidah’s life, although he sadly passed away in 1970, less than a decade after they arrived in Jordan. Aweidah was only 11 years old.

Fayez’s wish was to be buried in Jerusalem. Thankfully, the family managed to fulfill his wish and bury him in his beloved city. Aweidah’s mother, now a widow with three young daughters, decided that the best option was for them to move back to Jerusalem, where her family lived. They spent one final year in Amman while Ruqiyya sorted out the official papers to prove eligibility to live in Jerusalem.

Before the family’s move to Jordan, Aweidah had been enrolled at the Schmidt’s Girls School, but she could not reenroll there after their return to Jerusalem due to financial constraints and also having missed out on German classes. So her mother enrolled her for half a semester of sixth grade at Dar Al-Tifl Al-Arabi School. Eventually, she went to the Ramallah Secondary School for Girls, where she excelled as a student, including winning an orating competition and engaging in national activities. By the time she graduated from school in 1976, Aweidah had attended five schools in four cities: Jerusalem, Jerash, Amman, and Ramallah.

Upon reflection, Aweidah said that she appreciated having graduated from the Ramallah Secondary School for Girls, which is a public school. At the time, going to high school from Jerusalem to Ramallah was not the complicated, time-consuming, and risky process that it is today. She used to take a bus from Sheikh Jarrah, with no checkpoints or roadblocks on the way. The school in Ramallah had been full of Jerusalemite students, as families opted to steer away from the new Israeli-imposed educational curriculum in East Jerusalem.

While describing the ease with which she traveled between Ramallah and Jerusalem as a child, Aweidah contrasted it with the present. Due to movement restrictions imposed by Israel, including as a result of checkpoints and settler attacks in the West Bank, her family has been fragmented. She and one of her sisters have Israeli permanent-resident IDs, but their other sister lives in Ramallah and holds a Palestinian Authority (PA)-issued ID (see Precarious Status). The Ramallah-based sister is no longer allowed to visit her other sisters in Jerusalem—“unless we go to her, she cannot visit us.”2

Aweidah's father played a pivotal role in her self-perception as a Palestinian and as a woman in Jerusalem. Although she grew up in Sheikh Jarrah, her father’s family had been displaced from their home in Qatamon in 1948 (see The West Side Story). Aweidah recalls that Fayez held on to his memories of their cherished family home, which left a sad place in his heart. After 1967, Fayez managed to visit his childhood home, where he found that the Jewish woman who had been his family’s neighbor when he was growing up had now taken up residence. He was astounded that she remembered him well and invited him to visit her again.

“But he didn’t,” Aweidah explained. “It was his house, and he refused to be treated like a guest in his own home. It was too difficult for him to see that much of the furniture, including the family couch, was still there in the house.”3 Not long after that visit, he passed away.

In due time, Aweidah began to understand societal perceptions of her family in the absence of a male patriarchal figure. She also began to understand the effects of the Israeli occupation on Palestinian students, which instilled fear in many.

These realizations had a great impact on Aweidah’s future. As an adult, she became a feminist who spoke out against blatant oppression and discrimination of women and girls, and who championed the right of women to carve their own paths in society.

Aweidah stayed in Sheikh Jarrah until she graduated from the Ramallah Secondary School for Girls in 1976 with impressive grades that qualified her to study physics. However, she opted to enroll as a business administration student in the University of Jordan so that she would have time for political activism. She was greatly passionate about politics and joined the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP). Two years into her studies, however, she was expelled from the university on charges of inciting unrest by participating in student protests against the Israeli-Egyptian Camp David Accords of 1978.

Getting expelled from university did not deter Aweidah from political activism. She did not hold back from raising her voice during the First Intifada, when she became known for speaking up against the Israeli discrimination of Palestinians and the impact of Israeli occupation on women in particular. She became a leading figure in establishing the Palestinian Union of Women’s Action Committees in 1989 (the first local grassrooots feminist collective) and a member of the Democratic Front’s Central Committee (though she left the DFLP in 1990).

During those years as a student, Aweidah married. She had one daughter (Bissan) and three sons (Muhammad, Fayez, and Ahmad). She and her husband raised their children in Palestine until their separation 20 years later. Aweidah managed to complete her university education at Birzeit University in 1982, earning a degree in business administration.

Marriage, family, and divorce did not stop her from persevering in her activism. Her mother helped raise her four children while she studied, worked, and engaged in political activities. This was in no way an easy path under Israeli occupation, with Aweidah experiencing repeated closures and shutdowns while carrying out her work. In fact, she would oftentimes get invited to speak about the circumstances she endured as a student and a leader as a result of Israeli occupation policies.

In 1993, Aweidah cofounded the Women’s Studies Center (WSC), a Palestinian NGO based in Jerusalem. This was a pivotal moment in her career. In 1995, she was nominated by St. Mary’s University in London to lead the first gender training program in Palestine, which she delivered through the WSC.

In 1997, she became the administrative director of the center, and one year later, she became the general director—a post she holds to this day.

Among her most significant work efforts was developing the center’s programs to empower women and girls through research, education, and legal advocacy. She developed key training manuals for high schools and initiated programs to promote the rights of girls, including Aman, a program dealing with sexual harassment.

As she describes it, Aweidah’s work in the WSC occurs on the gender and national levels, both of which are required to raise awareness about what it means to be a woman living under occupation, including confronting gender bias by both Israeli authorities and Palestinian patriarchal society.

Aweidah’s work in the WSC was central to the establishment of the Arab Women’s Form (AISHA), a network of Arab women’s feminist organizations from eight Arab countries. From 1994 to 2004, she was elected three times to serve as AISHA’s general coordinator (1995, 1998, and 2002), which involved coordinating joint projects, exchanging experiences, and spearheading campaigns for change in the Arab world. She also contributed to founding the Arab Women’s Court in 1996 and served as financial advisor to the Global Fund for Women in 1998.

In 2000, she completed an MBA at City St George’s, University of London. Upon returning to Palestine, she served as an advisory board member of the PA Ministry of Women’s Affairs in 2004, a member of the board of directors of the Euro-Med Non-Governmental Platform in 2005, and a member of the Palestinian NGOs Network’s (PNGO) steering committee since 2008. She also received training in gender equality through the International Labor Organization of Italy in 2015, was selected to serve on the committee responsible for drafting the Palestinian penal code, and participated in founding the Palestinian National Democratic Assembly in 2018.

Among her achievements while working with the Palestinian government was raising the age of marriage from 16 to 18. She worked extensively through the legislative process to amend laws related to gender equality, such as the family protection law. She also worked on integrating values respecting human and women’s rights in Palestinian school curricula.

Beyond her professional roles, Aweidah has worked extensively as a trainer, lecturer, and writer on issues related to gender, and she has spoken about issues pertaining to the status of women in various local and international events. Since assuming a leadership role at the WSC, its scope of work has broadened from Jerusalem to Nablus, Hebron, and Ramallah, which has allowed her to expand her expertise and outreach network.

In terms of her writings, Aweidah has taken the lead in drafting important articles and documents, including the Palestinian report about the role of the PNGO network in empowering women, published in 2005. She has also edited booklets and editorials, contributed articles to al-Quds newspaper, and written 14 children’s books that aim to educate children about the importance of gender equality, empower girls, and educate children about dealing with sexual harassment. Some of these stories were used in programs run jointly by the WSC and the Palestinian Ministry of Education in high schools, summer camps, and festivals, including “Filastin Habibati” (Palestine Is My Beloved) in Cairo in 2001, with accounts from the Second Intifada.

Aweidah has an eloquent and strong presence, especially in conferences and public events, where she is not shy to speak her mind despite harsh criticism and even attacks. The most significant backlash she experienced was in regards to her unreserved support of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Violence Against Women (CEDAW), a 1979 UN convention that the PA fully endorsed in 2014.

Critics, including self-proclaimed Islamic political parties and tribal leaders, objected, arguing that the provisions of CEDAW conflict with Islamic principles. They subsequently turned to smear campaigns of “CEDAWis” on social media and other public platforms, specifically targeting feminist organizations and activists. Aweidah was one of the main people targeted. The campaigns were so intimidating that the Ministry of Education halted its joint programs with the WSC.

Despite the persistence of these attacks, albeit to lesser extents, Aweidah is still going strong and speaking her mind. Among the messages she consistently delivers is one on the importance of women’s economic empowerment and putting words into action. “It is key to invest in human resources, and women—who make up 50 percent of society—should have access to resources,”4 Aweidah insists.

Aweidah’s extensive career and accomplishments have been widely acknowledged. She has been recognized as one of the key women leaders raising women’s rights issues during and after the First Intifada, and she was celebrated as one of the uprising’s protagonists in the popular film Naila and the Uprising, which focused on the intifada.

She was also chosen to serve as Commissioner for Human Rights by the International Commission for Human Rights in Palestine (ICHR).

She has received various awards, including the Franco-German Human Rights and the Rule of Law Award in December 2022, at a ceremony held at the residence of the German representative in Jerusalem. Since 2016, this award has been given annually to 15 people from around the world who have demonstrated special commitment and courage in working for human rights and the rule of law in their countries.

“Advancing Gender Equality amidst Occupation in Palestine: An Interview with Same Fayez (Women’s Studies Center). Catalan Cooperation, December 17, 2024.

“Naila and the Uprising.” Just Vision, 2019.

“Sama Aweidah.” All4Palestine. Accessed September 28, 2025.

“Sama Aweidah.” Palestine Cinema Days. Accessed September 28, 2025.

“Sama Aweidah.” [In Arabic.] Raya Media Network, July 12, 2009.

“Sama Aweidah.” [In Arabic.] Vision for Political Development, July 5, 2019.

“Sama Aweidah—General Director of the Women’s Research Center.” German Representative Office—Ramallah, November 25, 2022.

“Sama Aweidah with Director Emtyaz al-Moghrabi.” [In Arabic.] YouTube. September 11, 2025.

“Sama Fayez Aweidah.” Build Palestine. Accessed September 28, 2025.

“Sama Fayez Aweidah: A Defender of Palestinian Human Rights.” This Week in Palestine. Accessed September 28, 2025.

Wikipedia. s.v. “Sama Aweidah.” [In Arabic.] Last modified March 20, 2025, 04:52.

[Profile Photo: Just Vision]