The Plight of Bedouin Women

More than 180,000 Bedouin live in the Negev desert in southern Israel, but there is a big gap in terms of life opportunities between those Bedouins who live in 35 villages that are unrecognized by Israel and those who live in seven officially recognized villages.

Those in unrecognized villages face a constant threat of eviction and are at times cut off from even basic services.  People in these unrecognized villages have no address and they have no claim to land. Many of the villages have no water or electricity and there are no education or health care services.

Unemployment and poverty rates among the Negev Bedouin are the highest in Israel.  There is very little currently being done to lift these Bedouin communities out of poverty and help them to become financially independent.

The situation is most difficult for Bedouin women who face the dual challenges of living as Bedouin in Israel but also as women in a patriarchal society, where 30 percent of families are polygamous.

The conditions for women living in unrecognized villages are dramatically worse than for their counterparts in Israeli-built Negev towns.  Today 75 percent of the Bedouin students (mostly from Israeli recognized Negev towns) in university are women. But in the unrecognized villages the situation is very different — 65 percent of girls are out of school because there are no schools.