Aida Touma-Suliman, a Palestinian with Israeli citizenship, is the sixth of seven girls, born in 1964 to a Palestinian Christian Family from Nazareth; but now she considers herself an atheist. Her father was handy worker and her mother is a housewife. In 1987 Touma married Jerious Suliman and moved to live in Acre. She has two wonderful daughters, Maram and Miar, 16 and 13 years old. Along with six other women Touma has founded in Nazareth the Women Against Violence (WAV), an organization that advocates Palestinian women’s rights.

In 1982 Touma joined the University of Haifa as a psychology and Arabic Language student. During her second year of studies she was nominated as a leading member of the Arab Student Committee in the Haifa University as well as Secretary of The Union of Arab Student Committees for universities in Israel. In 1983/4 Touma was Committee Coordinator for the Defense of Arab Citizen Lands in Israel. During 1984 Touma was appointed as news reporter in the only Arab daily newspaper in Israel "Al-Ittihad". In 1989 she became an active member in Women in Black movement. From 1990 to 1994 she was Coordinator of the Jewish-Arab Movement of Democratic Women in Acre, overseeing 16 different branches in the villages.
1991-1993 Touma was Vice General Secretary of the Union of Mediterranean Women. In 1992 she co-founded and acted as a board member of Women Against Violence, a Palestinian women's organization in Israel that aimed to break the taboo concerning gender-based violence, advocating Palestinian women’s rights and establishing a set of social services, such as the first battered women shelter and crisis Centers for Arab women all over the world.
In 1993 she co-founded Al-Badeel, Coalition to combat "honor killings” crimes. In 1994 Touma acted as General Director of Women Against Violence. In 1995 she co-founded and acted as Board member of the Working Group for Equality in Personal Status Issues. Between 1995 and 1996 Touma was coordinator of the project "Engendering the Peace Process”, an Israeli-Palestinian women's project aiming to involve women from both sides in the peace process. In 1997 she co-founded the Working Group on Status of Palestinian Women in Israel, who are responsible for the CEDAW shadow report.

During the invasion of the Israeli Army to the West Bank and Gaza in April 2001, Aida Touma led many convoys of food and medical relief to towns in the West bank under curfew and siege, managing to deliver the supplies. Touma has dedicated her life to work with women from both sides, Palestinian and Israeli, promoting the peace efforts. She has been especially active in defending Palestinian women’s rights in Israel.
Breaking a huge taboo in the Arab society, Touma's WAV, that she co-founded in 1994, was one of the first to bring the issue of domestic violence into the public debate. In 1993, WAV founded the first shelters for battered women in the Arab world. The group also founded a halfway house for women trying to rebuild their lives after leaving abusive husbands. To seek out Arab women who are victims of physical and emotional abuse, WAV operates a telephone hotline; Touma says it receives an average of 300 calls a year from women all over Israel - a large number for a society that has traditionally been loath to admit that these problems even exist.
Touma's group has also targeted one of the most infamous practices in Arab society: "honor killings", in which the male relatives of a woman suspect her sexual impropriety and kill her to defend the family’s fame. Women Against Violence is part of a worldwide coalition of groups working to end these killings in Middle Eastern and African nations; an average of eight take place in Israel annually.

The WAV is on the forefront of women movements, leading many campaigns to improve women’s rights and involvement in public life. It implements community grassroots methods of organizing and reaching out for the community, as well as empowering leadership advocacy. Touma has also developed services tailored to meet the needs of the Palestinian women, which were accepted by the communities they were part of. The unique features of her work include establishing the first services for Arab women suffering from violence, shelters, crisis centers and halfway houses.
She has orchestrated developmental coalitions concerning crucial issues such as personal status issues and "honor killings" crimes, breaking the social taboos and struggling for human rights and women rights. It is important to mention that in 1992, when WAV was established, the issue of gender-based violence was a total taboo within the Palestinian Community. The society did not want to probe the problem and bring it into the public arena.

Raising the Personal Status laws and the intention to change the law towards allowing women an access to the civil courts beside the religious courts led obviously to a huge opposition by the religious and nationalistic forces. Nevertheless Women Against Violence continued the struggle and created much needed changes. The major change that resulted from Touma's activities lies in the fact that gender based violence became an issue very well revealed and condemned in Palestinian society. Palestinian women now have the right to refuse to live under violent situations, breaking the sole sovereignty of the religious laws concerning personal status issues and breaking the taboo engulfing honor crimes and killings.
The major beneficiaries from Touma’s achievements are Palestinian Women in Israel, the Palestinian community and the Israeli Feminists Movements. In her work Touma faces an opposition of the most conservative and religious forces in the community. She has become well known in dealing with the most difficult cases of gender-based violence and is targeted sometimes by the anger of violent men whose wives and daughters are using the assistance of the WAV. Leading the lobbying and advocacy activities for the injustice and discrimination of the Israeli government against Palestinian women made Touma unwelcome by the decision makers in the different governmental agencies.

Inspired by Touma's work a German organization WADI, together with Kurdish Women Organizations developed women centers in Sulimaniya, North Iraq and Kurdistan. Four years ago she was the consultant for a Palestinian Women Organization named Family Defense, helping it to establish the first women shelter in the West Bank. Her work of fighting against the "honor crimes” phenomenon became an international paradigm to all societies addressing this problem.
Touma expresses her discontent with the Palestinian voices that ignore probing the issue of gender-based violence on the plea that it comes secondary to other more demanding issues in the society. She says: "The fact that we are part of the Palestinian people also makes it difficult for us, because whenever we as women want to talk about our problems, the public discourse is, ‘It's not time to deal with these issues. We have more important things.’ The nationalist wing says: ‘National issues should come first.’ We are told that the West is trying to drag our attention to another issue that is not important. We are accused of airing our dirty laundry, and our critics say ‘this can be used by the West or by the Israelis against us.’ But this is not an excuse at all for ignoring women's rights".
Aida Touma-Suliman s sending a clear message of support to the marginalized and discriminated women all over the world, who are struggling in very difficult circumstances for their rights and for the attainment of peace.

In 1992, when Women Against Violence (WAV) was established, the issue of gender-based violence was a total taboo that no one among the Palestinian community wanted to deal with. The society did not want to reveal the problem and it was not acceptable to bring the issue into the public arena or persuade women to seek refuge outside their families. Only very few women had visions of analyzing society's perceptions of the role of women. Among these women is Aida Touma Suliman. She says, "We were feminists: psychologists, social workers and lawyers. We faced many situations where we were either witnessing violence, or our clients were victims of violence. And what shocked us was that everyone accepted this. It happened, it was normal, and nobody wanted to speak about it. That drove us from the beginning. We decided we had to act."
In her work Touma faces the opposition of the most conservative and religious forces in the community. She has become famous for dealing with the most difficult cases of gender-based violence and is sometimes the target of violent anger, directed by men whose wives and daughters are using the discourse and services of the WAV. Leading the lobbying and advocacy activities for justice and against the Israeli government's discrimination of Palestinian women led to Touma's nonacceptance by the decision makers in the various governmental agencies. Touma indicates, "The fact that we are part of the Palestinian people also makes it difficult for us, because whenever we as women want to talk about our problems, the public discourse is, ‘It is not the time to deal with these issues. We have more important things.’ But this is not an excuse at all for ignoring women's rights."

In 1992, when WAV was established, the issue of gender-based violence was a total taboo within the Palestinian community. The major change that has resulted from WAV and Touma's activities is that this was condemned in Palestinian society.

Women Against Violence (WAV)