And the problem is getting worse with growing poverty and lawlessness in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the New York-based group said.
The report comes about a year after a Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics survey of more than 4,000 households found 23 percent of women said they experienced domestic violence, but 1 percent had filed a complaint. Two-thirds said they were subjected to psychological abuse at home.
Human Rights Watch urged the Palestinian president, parliament, and government ministries to make protection of women a top priority. The group said more can be done despite the conflict with Israel and the cash crisis in the Palestinian Authority brought on by the rise to power of the Islamic militant group Hamas.
"The main failing of the system is the failure to treat violence against women as a crime and to address it accordingly," researcher Lucy Mair said. "We want to say you can take some positive steps and it's imperative to provide protection to more women."
Mair said Human Rights Watch studied the Palestinian territories -- rather than investigating abuses in other traditional societies -- because some Palestinian officials had signaled they were ready for change.
"This made us optimistic we have something to work with," she said.
Commenting on the report, Adnan Amr, a legal adviser to President Mahmoud Abbas, agreed Palestinian authorities are "weak" in enforcing the law, but blamed "the security and political situation we have been through over the past two years."
"All Palestinians, not only women, are paying a heavy price for the chaos," Amr said, referring to struggles between rival Palestinian groups.
Human Rights Watch's report, based on dozens of interviews with victims, social workers, lawyer s , and police chiefs in the West Bank and Gaza, said abusers in the Palestinian territories are granted virtual immunity.
Rapists who marry their victims are not prosecuted, it said, and such deals often are arranged by the families, tribal leaders, and police.
