children
source: http://www.palestinemonitor.org/spip/spip.php?article11
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http://www.palestinemonitor.org/spip/spip.php?article11
Children“Life is becoming more violent for children in the Palestinian Territory. By the end of 2006 more than 120 children had died due to the conflict, more than double the number of child deaths in 2005. Many more have been injured, some for life.”
UNICEF, 2007
"Children have the right to be protected from being hurt and mistreated, physically or mentally. Governments should ensure that children are properly cared for and protect them from violence, abuse and neglect by their parents, or anyone else who looks after them."
Article 19 of the United Nations Conventions on the Rights of the Child
Children in Palestine: The Facts
60% of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories are under 19-years-old.
One in 3 Palestinian males aged 15-19 is an unskilled worker. Unemployment is a severe problem for young Palestinian men: 20% of 15-19-year-olds cannot find paid work.
20% of Palestinian females marry between the ages of 15-19. More than 1 in 10 subsequently divorce.
According to the United Nations Fund for Children (UNICEF): “Conditions have rarely been worse for Palestinian children.” One in 10 Palestinian children now suffer from stunted growth due to compromised health, poor diet and nutrition and 50% of Palestinian children are anemic, and 75% of those under 5 suffer from vitamin A deficiency.
UNICEF claims that roadblocks, barriers, checkpoints and soldiers are impeding health workers and patients, including child patients, from accessing health centers across the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Delivery of medication and equipment are also severely affected.
On March 8th, 2007 Khaled Daud Faqih died at a checkpoint between the village of Kafr’Ain and the city of Ramallah. His parents were trying to take him to Ramallah hospital, but were detained at a checkpoint by Israeli soldiers. Khaled Daud Faqih was 6 months old.
Rising poverty and unemployment is affecting school attendance across Palestine. In the 2005/6 school year the number of students whose families could not afford the NIS 50 ($11) school fee doubled from 29,000 to 56,000.
Up to 67% of families are living in poverty across the West Bank. In Gaza poverty rates have spiraled to 85% this year, severely affecting every aspect of children’s lives.
Increasing numbers of Palestinian children are now working to support their families instead of attending school. Palestinian children under the age of 14 can cross Israeli checkpoints without permits, and at least one thousand Palestinian children now cross into Israel every day, to work in garbage tips salvaging glass and metal. More than half of the Palestinian children who work in Israel, or Palestine, do not attend school at all.
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Children in Palestine
The Palestinian demographic is weighted heavily toward the youth, in which the ma-jority of the population is under the age of eighteen. In the Gaza Strip, it is estimated that the median age is nearly 15 years old. This generation and those preceding it know nothing but military occupation and war. They are often called the ‘lost generation’ as they have been robbed of the tools and structures by which to develop a normal life.
In a reality where the adults are engaged in daily violence and aggression, the emotion and outlook of young Palestinians is built upon anger, loss and trauma. All Palestin-ian children can tell you about their relationship to the occupation and the horrors they have witnessed at such a young and vulnerable age - from death to injury to daily humiliation. Many children, far more than in other countries, suffer from acute psychological, emotional and social problems which exhibit themselves in a variety of ways.
It is commonly said that ‘the children are our future’, and that this brutal conflict must come to an end so that they will have the opportunity to live and develop in a peaceful secure environment. The following chapter attempts to outline why we have failed as Israelis and Palestinians to provide this en-vironment, and how the standard of living for Palestinian children has declined along the same trajectories as the Palestinian economy. This is unacceptable according to every national and international law, standard or moral code. Moreover, it makes peace that much harder to reach between our two peoples.
The children of the ‘lost generation’ have, more often than not, never met an Israeli who was unarmed, unafraid, and not dealing with them from a position of power. To them, the guard at the checkpoint repre-sents all Israelis; and within this they have found something to fear and hate. Soon this ‘lost generation’ will arrive to their adulthood knowing only occupation, and nothing what-so-ever of peace. It is them with whom peace will have to be struck, and it is their accumulated anger and trauma which will sit on the opposite side of the negotiating table. To those who say that there have been no real ‘partner for peace’ before on the Palestinian side...wait until you meet the ones with no hope at all.
- 4 years ago
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