LEGAL EMPOWERMENT

Today we visit Al-Maqdese. We support their project on legal empowerment of the Palestinian Jerusalemite workers that have problems with Israeli or Palestinian employers.

Many Palestinians that live in East-Jerusalem have problems in the Israeli work market due to that they can’t speak or read Hebrew. All laws, paper, applications etc are in Hebrew.

Al-Maqdese main activities are advocacy and lobby campaigns, legal and technical consultations and services and legal defense in Israeli courts for political, civil, economic, social and cultural cases.

We met Walid Sunukrut (54) that has been getting help through the project. He used to work in a factory and after three years his lost his job when he complained that he didn’t get his wages. He had no contract, did not get paid for overtime, and had no holidays. The employer told him to go to court if he thought he had some legal right. Walid contacted Al-Maqdese instead, and won his case in court. He got 6500 shekel in compensation. But even better, the fabric was afraid of more court cases, and paid more than 20 others employees their right wages and compensations.

Tomorrow is our last day in East- Jerusalem.