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Present and Future: The Urgency of Children’s Rights in Palestine
Present and Future: The Urgency of Children’s Rights in Palestine By Rifat Odeh Kassis
Our children are our future. This is a common idea, easily borrowed for slogans and sayings; an idea with which, I suspect, most people in the world would agree.
But our children are our present, too. The problems they encounter, the challenges they face, reveal a diagnosis of the problems and challenges afflicting society itself.
Sixty-three years into Israeli occupation, the state of Palestinians’ human rights is grave, and the state of Palestinian children’s rights is graver still. In a situation dominated by military control, violence, intimidation, fragmentation, and the violation of basic rights to free movement, education, health services, and so forth, all Palestinians have seen their liberties constantly violated and denied - and children, growing up in this atmosphere with all the toxins it contains, are the most severely affected.
Defence for Children International - Palestine Section (DCI-PS) seeks to provide resources, support, empowerment, and hope to Palestinian children and their families in the midst of this environment. DCI-PS is the Palestinian chapter of the international DCI movement, which works to protect and promote children’s rights through 45 national sections across the globe. Founded in 1991 and staffed by a dedicated team of employees and volunteers, our main office is located in Ramallah, though we work throughout the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.
Our vision is a Palestinian community that is fit for all children: a community that is free and independent; a community in which justice, equality, and respect for human dignity prevail; and a community in which children can enjoy and exercise their human rights without any kind of discrimination. In our work and our advocacy, we prioritise the child’s best interests above all, and emphasise children’s own right to participation: we encourage and act upon the belief that children themselves are fully capable of articulating their needs, of participating in the social processes that honour those needs, and thus of acting as true agents of social change.
Our work at DCI-PS is structured according to our three central roles: to document (we have a monitoring and observing role); to defend (we provide legal representation for children in Israeli prisons and children in conflict with the Palestinian law, advocate for their rights, and seek accountability from primary duty-bearers); and to empower (through capacity-building initiatives and work with others, e.g., networking, coordination, and cooperation with other governmental and non-governmental bodies).
DCI-PS’s legal and advocacy work seeks - among many other goals - to improve the protective environment for children within the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority (this includes assisting in developing a Palestinian juvenile justice system in accordance with international standards); monitoring and documenting the conditions of children in detention within both the PA and Israeli systems; representing Palestinian minors in Israeli military courts; providing legal and psychological support to children in conflict with the law and to their families; producing advocacy materials about discriminatory Israeli governmental and military policies; and strengthening the programmatic capacities of child-focused community-based organisations working alongside us in the Palestinian context.
And what does this context contain? In other words, what is the reality experienced by Palestinian children, and what are the primary obstacles to the true fulfilment of their rights?
The detention policies of the Israeli state. Among the most egregious aspects of Israel’s detention policy overall is its treatment of child prisoners. While military regulations active in the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt) technically define a child of 16 as an adult (and while this in itself defies the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which defines an adult as 18 years old), in practice, children as young as 12 are tried in military courts, with 14-year-olds often being tried as adults. Children are routinely grouped with adults in detention, and neither Israel nor the PA has juvenile courts. Starting from the Second Intifada, Israel began to utilise administrative detention against children; since that time, too, the arrest and detention of children has become more rampant and systemic, with around 350 to 430 child prisoners held each month.
As of December 2010, there were 213 children in detention; 30 were between 12 and 15 years old; one child was held under administrative detention (which means being arrested and detained with neither charge nor trial, justified by administrative order instead of judicial decree). The most common charge for children in detention is stone-throwing. As of October 2010, Jerusalem police are implementing a policy of increased/extended house arrest for children charged with throwing stones, as well as high fines for their families, in an attempt to “discourage” this activity.
Violence and abuse during detention. In addition to regularly suffering similar abuses as adult prisoners - beatings, humiliation, being painfully shackled, etc. - child prisoners are subjected to many tactics designed to exploit their young age and intimidate them into confessions. These illegally obtained confessions are often used as evidence in the military court system, leading to the convictions of about 700 Palestinian children each year. In Silwan, a flashpoint neighbourhood in East Jerusalem (22 homes are under threat of demolition by the Jerusalem municipality, and the neighbourhood contains particularly virulent settlement activity), 76 percent of children arrested report that they were subjected to some form of physical violence during arrest, transfer, or interrogation. Their reports include accounts of slapping, punching, kicking, beating with a rifle, and having their hands painfully restrained for hours at a time. Children are routinely interrogated in the absence of their parents.
Settler violence. During the period from March 2008 to July 2010, DCI-PS documented 222 settler attacks against Palestinians, causing 364 injuries - 93 of them suffered by children. Half of these attacks occurred in or around the city of Hebron. In investigations/analyses of 38 such attacks against children, it was found that settlers opened fire in 13 of the cases (killing 3 children, injuring 10); in 8 cases, soldiers participated, ignored the events, or punished the victims rather the attackers.
Targeted shootings. Each day in the north of Gaza, close to the border fence that separates it from Israel, scores of boys and men search for building gravel and other materials that could be used for construction - another consequence of the blockade and its accompanying shortage of work and resources. During the period between 26 March and 23 December, DCI-PS documented 23 cases of children who had been shot by Israeli soldiers while collecting gravel between 50 and 800 meters from the border fence.
Domestic abuse. Many cases of physical and psychological violence, including sexual abuse, go unreported within the oPt - often due to deeply entrenched social stigmas that prevent families from openly addressing such problems. Even when addressed, many cases of domestic abuse are mediated informally and never reach official institutions or trained professionals.
Lack of effective protection. Within the PA, the legislative framework that regulates child protection at the domestic level is both outdated and poorly enforced. Although the PA adopted the Palestinian Child Law in 2004, an important first step toward the condemnation of violence against children, the scope of this legislation is limited in terms of the protection it actually provides. For example, it does not stipulate precise penalties for violations of the law, nor does it adequately allocate responsibilities among primary duty-bearers.
The Ministry of Social Affairs is the main body responsible for overseeing the oPt’s child protection mechanism, but it doesn’t have a sufficient number of protection centres or officers under its supervision to fully accommodate the number of children who require protection; likewise, collaboration with other governmental and non-governmental bodies (e.g., to strengthen inter-ministerial child protection policy) leaves much to be desired. The oPt also lacks an adequate juvenile justice system: the mechanisms that exist for dealing with children in conflict with the law are outdated, and its protection methods and resources do not meet international standards.
I could go on. The problems are seemingly endless; the violations are appalling; our present reality is, clearly, a troubled one.
Yet working with DCI-PS - with my impassioned colleagues, with other organisations determined to make a difference, with children themselves and their remarkable strength - reminds me every day that we must not resign ourselves to this reality. Indeed, we must change it. And we can, little by little, child by child, family by family, lawyer by lawyer, law by law … in collecting affidavits from children and ensuring that their voices be heard; in representing children in court who would not otherwise have been defended; in advocating internationally for the rights of children in, for example, Gaza, a place so painfully inaccessible to most of us in person and so easily neglected by the world; in collaborating with both governmental bodies and other NGOs to gradually effect changes in the very institutions - and mentalities - that exist with respect to children’s rights; it is clear that we are all, both children and adults, growing and changing.
There is a great deal of work to be done before we can confidently say that we have “a Palestinian community that is fit for all children.” In the meantime, when we remember that our children are both our present and our future, we can work together in sharing our experiences, energies, and abilities to strengthen both.
I invite you to visit the DCI-PS website, www.dci-pal.org, to learn more about our work - and about the children we are working for.
But our children are our present, too. The problems they encounter, the challenges they face, reveal a diagnosis of the problems and challenges afflicting society itself.
Sixty-three years into Israeli occupation, the state of Palestinians’ human rights is grave, and the state of Palestinian children’s rights is graver still. In a situation dominated by military control, violence, intimidation, fragmentation, and the violation of basic rights to free movement, education, health services, and so forth, all Palestinians have seen their liberties constantly violated and denied - and children, growing up in this atmosphere with all the toxins it contains, are the most severely affected.
Defence for Children International - Palestine Section (DCI-PS) seeks to provide resources, support, empowerment, and hope to Palestinian children and their families in the midst of this environment. DCI-PS is the Palestinian chapter of the international DCI movement, which works to protect and promote children’s rights through 45 national sections across the globe. Founded in 1991 and staffed by a dedicated team of employees and volunteers, our main office is located in Ramallah, though we work throughout the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.
Our vision is a Palestinian community that is fit for all children: a community that is free and independent; a community in which justice, equality, and respect for human dignity prevail; and a community in which children can enjoy and exercise their human rights without any kind of discrimination. In our work and our advocacy, we prioritise the child’s best interests above all, and emphasise children’s own right to participation: we encourage and act upon the belief that children themselves are fully capable of articulating their needs, of participating in the social processes that honour those needs, and thus of acting as true agents of social change.
Our work at DCI-PS is structured according to our three central roles: to document (we have a monitoring and observing role); to defend (we provide legal representation for children in Israeli prisons and children in conflict with the Palestinian law, advocate for their rights, and seek accountability from primary duty-bearers); and to empower (through capacity-building initiatives and work with others, e.g., networking, coordination, and cooperation with other governmental and non-governmental bodies).
DCI-PS’s legal and advocacy work seeks - among many other goals - to improve the protective environment for children within the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority (this includes assisting in developing a Palestinian juvenile justice system in accordance with international standards); monitoring and documenting the conditions of children in detention within both the PA and Israeli systems; representing Palestinian minors in Israeli military courts; providing legal and psychological support to children in conflict with the law and to their families; producing advocacy materials about discriminatory Israeli governmental and military policies; and strengthening the programmatic capacities of child-focused community-based organisations working alongside us in the Palestinian context.
And what does this context contain? In other words, what is the reality experienced by Palestinian children, and what are the primary obstacles to the true fulfilment of their rights?
The detention policies of the Israeli state. Among the most egregious aspects of Israel’s detention policy overall is its treatment of child prisoners. While military regulations active in the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt) technically define a child of 16 as an adult (and while this in itself defies the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which defines an adult as 18 years old), in practice, children as young as 12 are tried in military courts, with 14-year-olds often being tried as adults. Children are routinely grouped with adults in detention, and neither Israel nor the PA has juvenile courts. Starting from the Second Intifada, Israel began to utilise administrative detention against children; since that time, too, the arrest and detention of children has become more rampant and systemic, with around 350 to 430 child prisoners held each month.
As of December 2010, there were 213 children in detention; 30 were between 12 and 15 years old; one child was held under administrative detention (which means being arrested and detained with neither charge nor trial, justified by administrative order instead of judicial decree). The most common charge for children in detention is stone-throwing. As of October 2010, Jerusalem police are implementing a policy of increased/extended house arrest for children charged with throwing stones, as well as high fines for their families, in an attempt to “discourage” this activity.
Violence and abuse during detention. In addition to regularly suffering similar abuses as adult prisoners - beatings, humiliation, being painfully shackled, etc. - child prisoners are subjected to many tactics designed to exploit their young age and intimidate them into confessions. These illegally obtained confessions are often used as evidence in the military court system, leading to the convictions of about 700 Palestinian children each year. In Silwan, a flashpoint neighbourhood in East Jerusalem (22 homes are under threat of demolition by the Jerusalem municipality, and the neighbourhood contains particularly virulent settlement activity), 76 percent of children arrested report that they were subjected to some form of physical violence during arrest, transfer, or interrogation. Their reports include accounts of slapping, punching, kicking, beating with a rifle, and having their hands painfully restrained for hours at a time. Children are routinely interrogated in the absence of their parents.
Settler violence. During the period from March 2008 to July 2010, DCI-PS documented 222 settler attacks against Palestinians, causing 364 injuries - 93 of them suffered by children. Half of these attacks occurred in or around the city of Hebron. In investigations/analyses of 38 such attacks against children, it was found that settlers opened fire in 13 of the cases (killing 3 children, injuring 10); in 8 cases, soldiers participated, ignored the events, or punished the victims rather the attackers.
Targeted shootings. Each day in the north of Gaza, close to the border fence that separates it from Israel, scores of boys and men search for building gravel and other materials that could be used for construction - another consequence of the blockade and its accompanying shortage of work and resources. During the period between 26 March and 23 December, DCI-PS documented 23 cases of children who had been shot by Israeli soldiers while collecting gravel between 50 and 800 meters from the border fence.
Domestic abuse. Many cases of physical and psychological violence, including sexual abuse, go unreported within the oPt - often due to deeply entrenched social stigmas that prevent families from openly addressing such problems. Even when addressed, many cases of domestic abuse are mediated informally and never reach official institutions or trained professionals.
Lack of effective protection. Within the PA, the legislative framework that regulates child protection at the domestic level is both outdated and poorly enforced. Although the PA adopted the Palestinian Child Law in 2004, an important first step toward the condemnation of violence against children, the scope of this legislation is limited in terms of the protection it actually provides. For example, it does not stipulate precise penalties for violations of the law, nor does it adequately allocate responsibilities among primary duty-bearers.
The Ministry of Social Affairs is the main body responsible for overseeing the oPt’s child protection mechanism, but it doesn’t have a sufficient number of protection centres or officers under its supervision to fully accommodate the number of children who require protection; likewise, collaboration with other governmental and non-governmental bodies (e.g., to strengthen inter-ministerial child protection policy) leaves much to be desired. The oPt also lacks an adequate juvenile justice system: the mechanisms that exist for dealing with children in conflict with the law are outdated, and its protection methods and resources do not meet international standards.
I could go on. The problems are seemingly endless; the violations are appalling; our present reality is, clearly, a troubled one.
Yet working with DCI-PS - with my impassioned colleagues, with other organisations determined to make a difference, with children themselves and their remarkable strength - reminds me every day that we must not resign ourselves to this reality. Indeed, we must change it. And we can, little by little, child by child, family by family, lawyer by lawyer, law by law … in collecting affidavits from children and ensuring that their voices be heard; in representing children in court who would not otherwise have been defended; in advocating internationally for the rights of children in, for example, Gaza, a place so painfully inaccessible to most of us in person and so easily neglected by the world; in collaborating with both governmental bodies and other NGOs to gradually effect changes in the very institutions - and mentalities - that exist with respect to children’s rights; it is clear that we are all, both children and adults, growing and changing.
There is a great deal of work to be done before we can confidently say that we have “a Palestinian community that is fit for all children.” In the meantime, when we remember that our children are both our present and our future, we can work together in sharing our experiences, energies, and abilities to strengthen both.
I invite you to visit the DCI-PS website, www.dci-pal.org, to learn more about our work - and about the children we are working for.
Rifat Odeh Kassis is president of Defence for Children International Executive Council - Geneva, and general director of Defence for Children International - Palestine Section.
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