Chapter VI Conclusions and Recommendations 1. Conclusions • International conventions of human rights emphasize that sexual assault is a form of gender-based violence against women due to imbalance and inequality between men and women. • The World Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women urged states to adopt all appropriate measures, especially in the field of education, to modify the social and cultural patterns of the conduct of men and women, and to eliminate prejudices, customary practices and all other practices based on the idea of the inferiority or superiority of either of the sexes and on stereotyped roles for men and women. • The Beijing Platform for Action urged states to, on an ongoing basis, evaluate and analyze their national laws to guarantee their effectiveness and adopt the appropriate measures to ensure protection for women against violence. States were also to enable women to have access to fair and effective justice, including redress and compensation against harm, remedy for the victims, rehabilitation of its perpetrators and implementation of CEDAW. • Laws evolved due to the influence of social contract theory and with a view to organizing the relationship between individuals and the ruling authorities on one side and between individuals on the other, to ensure clear and binding rules for all sectors of society on the basis of mutual respect, justice and equality. • Laws aim to achieve three integral purposes, which are the support of community peace, reconciliation between conflicting interests and achievement of justice. In addition, penal codes aim to achieve three objectives, and these are the protection of values and social interests, satisfactory achievement of justice, and the achievement of security and legal stability. • Palestinian society is, like other Arab societies, characterized by a patriarchal structure. Patriarchy means the full domination of males, where the discourse, orders and decisions of the father remain dominant and the social, economic and cultural backwardness of the society continue to impede its development and keep it fossilized, rigidly understating the role of women and overstating that of the man. This social reality has been reflected in legislative reality throughout the different 45