Newly released today, Defence for Children International-Palestine Section (DCI) has produced this short film about Israel’s ill-treatment of Palestinian children during their arrest, transfer and detention. Alone: Palestinian Children in the Israeli Military Detention System contains images of children who found the courage to talk about the appalling treatment.

For example, 14-year-old Ala tells how he was handcuffed and blindfolded during his arrest. “They [Israeli soldiers] put me in the jeep and transferred me to Etzion interrogation center. The interrogator told me to say goodbye to my friend Muhannad, because he was going to throw me from the third floor. No one was there to protect me. No one was with me. I was alone.”
Since 2000, around 7,500 Palestinian children from the occupied Palestinian territories have been detained, interrogated and imprisoned within the Israeli military law system. The film also presents basic information and the impact of their arrest and detention on families.

When 13-year-old Muhannad talks about his arrest, the look in his eyes is heart breaking. His father saw how Israeli soldiers treated his son, “It was as if they were coming to arrest a combatant or an armed fugitive.”

Interrogations are set up to terrorize
In 75 precent of the cases documented by DCI, child detainees suffered some form of physical violence during arrest, transfer and interrogation.

The suffering starts the moment a child is arrested and continues throughout interrogation and court sessions, explains DCI lawyer Iyad Misk. Children are often physically, verbally abused, insulted by soldiers during transport in the jeep. The abuse continues during the interrogation.

Children are also often enticed with offers of immediate release in exchange for confessions. However, what normally happens is just the opposite. Once a child confesses, he is sent to prison and his file is sent to the court. Interrogations are set up to terrorize, says Misk.

Nader Abu Amsha of the East Jerusalem YMCA Rehabilitation Programme says that the purpose of the raids, arrests and interrogations is more than getting information. It is to break the will and spirit of a generation. The purpose is to break the children and make them live in fear and confusion so they become an inactive, unproductive generation.

DCI’s latest film is an excellent tool to inform a wide audience about the ill-treatment of Palestinian children in the Israeli military detention system. The film can watched on YouTube, or copies of the DVD can be ordered from DCI-Palestine.

First published in the Electronic Intifada.

AUTHOR: Adri Nieuwhof
URL: http://www.samora.org
E-MAIL: a.nieuwhof [at] samora.org

This week, the United States signed a new Declaration on Women’s Participation. Next year, we should each announce the steps we are taking to break down economic and political barriers that stand in the way of women and girls. That is what our commitment to human progress demands. -President Obama’s Address to the United Nations General Assembly, September 21, 2011 (White House)

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton launched the Equal Futures Partnership on behalf of the United States along with 12 other founding members (Australia, Benin, Bangladesh, Denmark, Finland, Indonesia, Jordan, the Netherlands, Peru, Senegal, Tunisia, and the EU). Multilateral stakeholders including U.N. Women and the World Bank and leading businesses and non-profit institutions have also pledged support for the partnership.

Additionally, global health issues affecting children were at the top of the international agenda. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon stated that eradicating polio is at the top of his second-term goals, and he expressed optimism about achieving it in the next few years:

“We have reduced polio by 99% worldwide,” Ban said during the UN General Assembly, and he called on leaders to help Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan eliminate the last remaining cases. Timothy E. Wirth, president of the United Nations Foundation, called it “the most important international meeting on polio eradication in the last 20 years.” (Google/The Associated Press)

Another important task before the General Assembly was coming up with a strategy for creating a new set of international development goals once the MDGs expire.  The MDGs were a set of eight global health and poverty eradication goals world leaders agreed to at the U.N. in 2000; however, they expire in 2015. The international community has begun to nail down the details of a post-MDGs global development agenda. “We need a clear post-2015 development agenda — an agenda with shared responsibilities for all countries, with the fight against poverty at the fore and sustainable development at the core,” said United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (AlertNet).

In his address titled,  “A Call to Ambition,” to the 67th session of the U.N. General Assembly, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon stated,

“Still, we must raise our levels of ambition.  Poverty and inequality remain rampant.  Ecosystems are reaching the breaking point.  The world’s best science is irrefutable:  we must change course.  That is why I have urged world leaders to press ahead with initiatives on sustainable energy, education, nutrition and women’s and children’s health. The economic crisis should not be an excuse to default on commitments to the basics that all people need.”

AUTHOR: Cassandra Clifford
URL: www.bridgetofreedomfoundation.org and http://children.foreignpolicyblogs.com
E-MAIL: Cassandra [at] btff.org

Simon Denyer/The Washington Post – Children rescued from a bangle-making factory in New Delhi after a police raid on Sept.5, 2012. More than 90,000 children go missing in India every year, many of them sold into forced labor on farms and in factories.

Every six minutes, a child goes missing in India.

They are boys like Irfan, drugged and abducted at the age of 9 by two men on a motorbike as he walked home one day after playing with friends.

“It was living hell these past two years, trying to figure out where we could find him,” said his father, Iqbal Ali. “I used to run a biscuit bakery, but from the day he disappeared, I got so caught up trying to meet politicians, police and people who claim to do magic to get children back, that I had to shut down my bakery. I had no time for it.”

More than 90,000 children are officially reported missing every year, according to data compiled and released late last year by leading children’s rights group Bachpan Bachao Andolan, which showed the problem was far greater than previously thought.

Up to 10 times that number are trafficked, according to the group — boys and girls, most from poor families, torn from their parents, sometimes in return for cash, and forced to beg or work in farms, factories and homes, or sold for sex and marriage.

It is an epidemic that, until a few years ago, remained unreported and largely ignored by the authorities.

But years of tireless work by activists, a few crucial victories in court — and the shocking discovery of the bones of 17 slain girls and young women around a businessman’s home in a suburb of New Delhi called Nithari in 2006 — have gradually put the issue on the nation’s agenda.

India’s 24-hour news channels have also played a role in highlighting an issue long tolerated by the country’s middle classes. The media frenzy surrounding the Nithari killings was a watershed, reminiscent of the way the disappearance of Etan Patz in Manhattan in 1979 helped spark the missing-children’s movement in the United States.

In recent weeks, footage from surveillance cameras — a new phenomenon in modern India — has also been repeatedly broadcast on television here, showing infants being brazenly snatched from train stations and hospital lobbies as parents slept nearby.

“A couple of decades ago, there was no understanding of the issue of missing children or trafficking for forced labor — child labor was not even considered a crime,” said Bhuwan Ribhu, an activist for the children’s rights group. “Though things are slowly changing, the biggest issue is the lack of political and administrative will to enforce the law, which is often outside the reach of the common person.”

Irfan suffered perhaps the most common fate — kidnapped to satisfy India’s insatiable demand for cheap, agricultural labor.

In India and many other developing countries, children often work in agriculture. What is only now becoming apparent is the huge trafficking industry that has grown up outside the law.

Irfan’s story, though, has a happy ending. Last month, after more than two years away, he finally made it home to his joyous parents, after climbing on a chair in the shed where he was held and breaking a window with an earthen vase to escape.

“I was supposed to bathe the buffalo, to feed them, to pick up the dung,” he said, describing his life imprisoned in virtual solitary confinement in a room adjoining a buffalo shed outside the town of Mullanpur, some 200 miles northwest of Delhi.

“I was fed just once a day, just leftovers. When I used to shriek and make a fuss, they would tie my hands and feet at night.”

After escaping, Irfan found shelter with another family for several months. Then, last month, as the media furor about missing children reached its peak, he saw photographs of his parents and himself on a TV show.

Only then did he journey back to the New Delhi district of Nangloi, the only address he had in his memory.

“I took the train to Delhi, and a bus to Nangloi,” he said, “but when I arrived it had all changed. Before, there was no overpass, no metro. It looked like a completely different place to me.”

After half an hour of wandering, Irfan says he bumped into a friend, who took him home.

“We were just overwhelmed with happiness,” said his mother, Shabnam. “We went and got new clothes made for all of us. All his old clothes were too small, because he had grown so tall.”

Young laborers

Kidnapping represents just the tip of the iceberg of a vast child-trafficking industry in India. Many young children are sold by their parents or enticed from them with the promise that they will be looked after and be able to send money home. Never registered as missing, many simply lose touch with their parents, working long hours in garment factories or making cheap jewelry.

Globally, trafficking of children for forced labor and sexual exploitation remains a “largely hidden crime,” says the International Labor Organization, with no reliable data even existing on the scale of the problem.

The organization makes a “conservative estimate” that 5.5 million children around the world are trapped in forced labor, but in India alone the government uses estimates of 5 million to 12 million children forced to work.

On a recent raid with activists and police, 36 children were rescued from a series of tiny rooms where they were making bangles for 10 hours, some for just $4 a month.

One was just 6 years old, the son of a rickshaw puller from the faraway city of Patna, his hair and skin covered in glitter from the work. “They didn’t let me talk to my mother on the phone,” he said.

Last month, the Indian government proposed a blanket ban on the employment of children younger than 14, building on a 2009 law that established a child’s right to education until that age. Activists hailed the proposal, which now needs parliamentary approval, as a major step forward, but warned that enforcement will remain a significant challenge.

The U.S. State Department says India is making “significant efforts” to comply with minimum global standards for the elimination of trafficking, but notes challenges in enforcement and “the alleged complicity of public officials in human trafficking.”

Little help for the missing

The parents of several missing children interviewed in the past month said they had received little or no help from the police, largely, they said, because they were poor.

“The police were very cold. They just kept saying: ‘A lot of kids are missing. What can we do?’ ” said Kunwar Pal, 48, whose son, Ravi, was 12 when he went missing two years ago after going out to ride his bicycle. “Maybe if I had the money to pay a bribe, they would have found my kid.”

Nearly 450,000 cases of children trafficked for labor were reported in the past three years, but prosecutions were launched in just 25,000 of those cases and 3,394 employers were convicted, official figures show.

Twelve years ago, Pal’s wife died in childbirth, their infant daughter succumbing to diarrhea soon after. Now, in his bare one-roomed house, he pines for his favorite son, an obedient, undemanding and studious boy who dreamed of becoming a detective.

“He liked soap operas on TV, one called ‘CID,’ and he used to say he wanted to study and be educated and become a policeman,” said Pal, before breaking down in tears. “I am always expecting a call. ‘Papa, can I come home?’ ”

Rama Lakshmi and Suhasini Raj contributed to this report.

THIS ARTICLE WAS ALSO PUBLISHED IN THE WASHINGTON POST.

AUTHOR: Bachpan Bachao Andolan
URL: http://www.bba.org.in
E-MAIL: info [at] bba.org.in

The new U.N. report ranks the leading causes of child death as pneumonia, premature birth, diarrhea, childbirth complications and malaria. The report also shows that as deaths to all children under age five have dropped, those occurring in the first month of life have declined more slowly. As a result, newborn deaths now account for 43 percent of child deaths — up from 36 percent in 1990. Overall, the vast majority of child deaths — 83 percent — now occur in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia.

Save the Children said it is a critical time for Americans to help maintain momentum following a “Child Survival Call to Action,” convened in June by the U.S. government together with UNICEF and the governments of India and Ethiopia. Healthier children are the foundation for more productive, prosperous and stable communities, which benefit everyone, the agency said.

“We know where the children are that still need basic care to survive birth complications and childhood disease, and we know how health workers can save them,” Miles said. “It’s an issue everyone can get behind because every beat matters.”

AUTHOR: Cassandra Clifford
URL: www.bridgetofreedomfoundation.org and http://children.foreignpolicyblogs.com
E-MAIL: Cassandra [at] btff.org

Birth registration is the official recording of a child’s birth, and is both a permanent and official record of their existence. It is a simple concept — a child is born and then at the time and place of their birth a record is made of their name and the name of their parents, sex, along with the date, time and place of birth. However, the implementing registration in Africa is complex and efforts towards universal birth registration remain slow. In sub-Saharan Africa, 70 percent of all births went unregistered in 2000 alone.

Birth registrations in Africa remain slow due to a number of factors — some as simple as a lack of awareness by state and local athourities alike in combination with a lack of understanding of the implications by parents or potential patrents alike, whereas others may include social and ethnic taboos and/or births in rural areas or outside of a medical facility.  There is simply no sense of urgency; thus, parents do not see the hinderance and harm placed on the child until years later when a difficulty arises placing a child in school, getting healthcare, etc.

Birth registration is more than than a right but the key to the future.  Without a birth certificate a child is left to wander through life vulnerable to abuse and victimization.  A birth certificate is more than a simple piece of paper; it is a weapon against early marriage, child labor, recruitment into the armed forces, or detention and prosecution as an adult. Additionally, without registration a child may be unable to exercise many of their rights as an adult, such as the ability to obtain a formal job, open a bank account, get a marriage license, vote, or apply for a passport.  Furthermore, many parents are not registered themselves, which is often a requirement for child registration.  Halting this vicious cycle is key to ending exploitation and the denial of human rights worldwide.

The importance of birth registration as a fundamental human right is often overlooked in the general scheme of International Development and is a vital key to implementing sustainable development polices. Without registration, children are not included in data and thus are overlooked in planning, policy development and budget decisions.

International actions to see see birth registrations are universal and free are in place, as according to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child Article 7;

1. The child shall be registered immediately after birth and shall have the right from birth to a name, the right to acquire a nationality and as far as possible, the right to know and be cared for by his or her parents.
2. States parties shall ensure the implementation of these rights in accordance with their national law and their obligations under the relevant international instruments in this field, in particular where the child would otherwise be stateless.
countries have ratified the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (1990).

Additionally the The African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child Article 6, states that;

1. Every child shall have the right from his/her birth to a name;
2. Every child shall be registered immediately after birth;
3. Every child has the right to acquire a nationality;
4. States Parties to the present Charter shall undertake to ensure that their constitutional legislations recognize the principles according to which a child shall acquire the nationality of the State in the territory of which he/she has been born if, at the time of the child’s birth, he/she is not granted nationality by any other State in accordance with its laws.

Birth registration must become a top priority for all countries and international development to ensure that the rights of all children are safeguarded. Addressing statelessness and birth registration is key in the battle to protect the human rights of millions and brings us a step closer to ending modern slavery and the exploitation of men, women and children.  Without birth registration or recognition by a state, children are without an official identity; they have no recognized name or nationality — in legal terms, they do not exist. Without documentation to provide proof of their age or who they are, children are likely to be discriminated against and denied access to basic services such as health and education.

AUTHOR: Cassandra Clifford
URL: www.bridgetofreedomfoundation.org and http://children.foreignpolicyblogs.com
E-MAIL: Cassandra [at] btff.org

Adri Nieuwhof: Have you read the Breaking the Silence report with testimonies about the abuse of Palestinian children by Israeli soldiers? What was your first impression when you read it?

Rifat Kassis: As an organization working in the field, and as one that works to monitor and document Israeli violations of Palestinian children’s rights, the information revealed by the Breaking the Silence report is not news to me. But my first impression was — as I often reflect during my work with DCI-Palestine — that these practises do not just affect Palestinian children. Rather, they also affect the Israeli soldiers themselves, as well as Israeli society at large: at the end of the day, these soldiers will return home and deal with their own children or their own siblings as changed men and women. They will invariably be affected by their roles in the occupation, and they may display their consequences in a number of ways: they may be more violent in dealing with their children, for example, or they may find themselves behaving in two distinct and contrary ways, which may affect their overall psychological wellbeing.



AN:  Are the practises described by Breaking the Silence in line with the data and observations of DCI-Palestine?

RK: Yes. At DCI-Palestine, we usually document and report the accounts of the children themselves, whether they were eyewitnesses or victims. The testimonies revealed by Breaking the Silence support the stories that children tell us.

Almost all children inform DCI-Palestine that the Israeli soldiers try to terrify and intimidate Palestinian children in order to prevent them from participating in any activity against Israel, or in order to intimidate them during arrest and transfer to prepare them for the interrogation stage. Others have informed us that soldiers kick or otherwise mistreat them out of boredom, wanting to “have some fun.” I’m also thinking of one young boy’s account: upon being transported to a military camp, this boy was headbutted and punched by the soldier who received him; handcuffed, blindfolded, and put out in the yard, at which point other soldiers came to punch and spit at him; and intimidated him with a gun during his interrogation. “Can we shoot him?” one soldier asked another. “Yes, shoot him,” the other replied. “He’s an animal.” Then a third said, “Don’t. We’ll execute him in Ofer [a military prison].” According to our documentation, almost all children arrested by the Israeli army are exposed to at least one form of ill-treatment. 

Further, between 2004 and 2011, DCI-Palestine and other organisations documented the cases of 17 Palestinian children being used as human shields by Israeli forces.

To me, the Breaking the Silence report completes the reports we carry out by adding the stories of the perpetrators, which we usually can’t obtain. These accounts lend credibility to our reports, which represent the narrative of the victims.

AN: The report is based on testimonies of 30 soldiers. How do you assess the information they gave? Do you think the practises they report are common?

RK: I think that these practises are not simply the arbitrary acts of a few soldiers who don’t abide by the rules. They are part and parcel of the ideology of the state and the Israeli army. This argument is supported by the fact that the Israeli authorities rarely opened investigations on these allegations. And when cases do come to light, the state reaction is mild to the point of evasive, negligent. For example, when two Israeli soldiers were convicted for using a nine-year-old boy as a human shield during the offensive on Gaza — they forced him at gunpoint to search for explosives — the Israeli military court merely demoted their ranks and gave them three-month suspensions for “inappropriate conduct.” So, again, the abuse of Palestinian children’s rights is not only common, but also systemically carried out and institutionally protected. It is by no means incidental.


AN: How do you assess the impact of the abuse of children on families? What do you see in your day-to-day dealings with protecting the rights of Palestinian children?

RK: The impact of the abuse on children varies from child to child. It depends on the child’s age, on what exactly happened to him, and on the support that he received from his family. In general terms, though, almost all children experiencing these kinds of trauma are deeply affected. In the same way, families are affected, too. The absence of a child, the constant awareness that he is in prison and being subjected to ill-treatment there, puts an even heavier burden on families and how they try to cope with it. To summarize this burden, I will quote a mother of three children in or formerly in detention as interviewed in a report conducted by Save the Children Sweden and YMCA: “It’s epidemic; they come and take our children away in order to break us emotionally. And that affects a whole society, a whole people — I think none of us recovered from the trauma of our children being taken away from us.” 



AN: Is there anything you would like to say to the soldiers who testified?

RK: It is very important to speak up about these abusive practices and to reveal the truth about the occupation. What’s even more important, of course, is that soldiers refrain from abusing and mistreating children in the first place.

Sharing this information is important for the wellbeing of the soldiers themselves — including those who witnessed destructive practises and were unable to put an end to them. These accounts could be an important part of our future “truth and reconciliation” era, where the perpetrators reveal such information as a first step toward reparation and rehabilitation on the long road to justice.

The Israeli society and the international community should be aware of what the Israeli soldiers do in the OPT  [occupied Palestinian territory] and how the occupation destroys Palestinian lives — but it’s also crucial to remember, as Uri Avnery once said, how it corrupts the Israelis themselves. When it comes to occupation, no one emerges unharmed.


AN: What needs to be done to end the abuse?

RK: There must be accountability. The international community must work to stop Israel’s impunity. Israel must respect its obligations under international law. Both victims and perpetrators must speak about these abuses and make them known to the public — so that the public, then, can truly and effectively engage with putting pressure on Israel to abide by international law. BDS [boycott, divestment and sanctions] actions are one of the most direct and important measures the international community can take toward stopping these oppressive practices and bringing about a just peace in our region.


First published at Electronic Intifada.

AUTHOR: Adri Nieuwhof
URL: http://www.samora.org
E-MAIL: a.nieuwhof [at] samora.org

In 2007, Israeli soldiers arrested 13-year-old Majid Jaradat for throwing stones during a demonstration in Sair village, near Hebron. Majed spoke about the violence of his arrest and detention in a  video produced by Israeli rights organization B’tselem.

But this was no isolated case. Many more such incidents are reported in a new publication from the Israeli veterans’ organization Breaking The Silence with shocking admissions from Israeli soldiers about the maltreatment of Palestinian children under Israeli occupation. The disturbing violations of children’s rights by soldiers took place in the occupied Palestinian territories between 2005-2011.

My previous post Choose a kid at random, “aim at his body”: Israeli soldiers confess their violence, addressed the abuse of Palestinian children as human shields, the use of handcuffs for torture, and the lethal use of rubber bullets. This second post summarizes more examples of the abuse of children by Israeli forces from the Breaking The Silence report, many of which — including admissions of indiscriminate shooting and wilful shooting to kill children who pose no danger — amount to war crimes.

Abuse during arrest and detention

Beating a crying child with a Motorola

After a stone-throwing incident, soldiers were ordered to stop a 15-year-old child. “His name was Daoud. We stopped our vehicle, ran out, he was in total shock. We took him to Gross Post, to the Jewish side, and he began to cry, scream, he was just streaming sweat and tears. We had nothing to do with him, suddenly you end up with a crying kid. A second ago he was throwing roof tiles at the army post, and you’re dying to beat him to a pulp, and you’re alerted out there in that heat. You want to kill him but he’s crying. We didn’t know what to do, so we put him under watch.

Once someone who was with him went wild, did something to him and left. At some point when I was with him I tried to calm him down because he was tied, blindfolded, and crying, tears and sweat streaming out all over. I began to shake him, then the deputy company commander tried. He grabbed him and began to shake him: ‘Shut up, shut up, enough, cut it out!’ Then we took him to the police station at Givat Ha’avot and he continued to cry because the policemen didn’t take him in for interrogation. He was so annoying, this was insane. In all that mess, while he was crawling on the floor, the communications man took out his Motorola, his two-way radio and boom! – banged him on the head” (Hebron 2010).

Soldiers throwing stones at captive children

A soldier saw the abuse of detainees “so many times.” She remembers one of the first times she came to the commander’s office and “saw some five detainees, incredibly scary, and a few soldiers…” It was scary, because the detainees were children, around 14-15 years old. “Combatants came at those kids, threw stones at them, swore at them. And the kids sat as helpless as a human being can be, their hands shackled in those tight plastic bands that don’t let them move, blindfolded, total helplessness” (Nablus 2005-2006).

Indifferent

A child was arrested: “While we took him out of the jeep I remember hearing him shitting his pants… I also remember some other time when someone pissed in his pants. I just became so indifferent to it, I couldn’t care less. He shat in his pants, I heard him do it, I witnessed his embarrassment. I also smelled it. But I didn’t care” (Hebron 2010).

Violent “game”

A soldier confessed he detained adolescents, “You shackle them, blindfold them, put them at the army post’s sentry booth and then take them back.. Once we arrested someone and while driving, in the APC [Armored Personnel Carrier], someone played ‘kazabubu shlaflaf’ with him. When I say, ‘kazabubu,’ you have to say your name, and when I say, ‘shlaflaf,’ you must say your family name. So he began to play the game with him without explaining the rules. He said: ‘Kazabubu,’ and hit him on the head. Not too tough, but it was simply humiliating. Less painful than humiliating. He would hit him and some would yell the answer at him, what he was supposed to say: ‘Say your name!’ and the like: ‘What’s your name!?’ Shouts like that. Such a game can take about seven minutes…” (Nablus 2009).

Shooting

“Okay to shoot to kill. Regardless of their age”

We were instructed to take down anyone visibly armed in a riot or anyone with a Molotov cocktail even if it hasn’t been thrown yet. We should fire in his direction. If someone heats things up you can shoot either very close to him or to his legs or something like that. There is no one who tells you who is heating things up. All those fanatics see all the Palestinians there as heating things up.

Once we were with six guys inside an armored jeep in a real serious riot. The guy next to me fired at the ground to make the crowd run away, and then he goes: “Oops!” I look and see a kid bleeding on the ground and the crowd indeed was gone. He shot from inside the vehicle. He also said to us, like: “Don’t tell.” When Molotov cocktails are thrown at us we have the okay to shoot to kill. Regardless of their age (Nablus 2005-2006).

An ambush for kids

Once in a while one of our vehicles would be hit by Molotov cocktails on Mount Eval, in Nablus. After a few such incidents we laid an ambush. If a kid was about to throw a Molotov cocktail, you’re allowed to shoot him. “Shoot to kill?”, asks the interviewer. “Absolutely, that’s procedure, replies the soldier. “The moment you even see the lighter spark.” He explains that the soldiers try to provoke the kids by driving a jeep up and down.

The jeep goes by and suddenly they see a group of kids coming, “I think they were holding some bag.” A soldier aims his M-24 [marksmen’s rifle] at one of the kids. He asks the officer if it’s okay to release the safety catch. The officer tells him it’s fine. “[S]uddenly – boom! – the marksman’s rifle let off a shot. We see the kids scatter in all directions, running like hell, and we have no idea what happened because we know he was aiming and we don’t know whether the kid was hit or not.”

Interviewer: You said they were holding a bag. Did they aim at the one holding the bag?
Soldier: That’s a spot that Molotov cocktails are often thrown from.
Interviewer: But a Molotov cocktail is a bottle, not a bag.
Soldier: But you always have to assume that that’s what’s in the bag. You get it?
Interviewer: What ages were these kids?
Soldier: Little – 13, 14, 15.

(Nablus 2009)

“Free game”

Molotov cocktails were regularly thrown from Jilazoun refugee camp in the direction of Beit El settlement. None of them ever really reach Beit El. “It was always kids throwing, and for a while we would lay ambushes there, and once in a while a Molotov cocktail would be hurled at one of our forces, and they’d be chased. One of my friends was sitting at Beit El in a sort-of marksman’s post, and a kid came out and threw a Molotov cocktail, and he shot him. The moment they light up the bottle, they’re free game.

Interviewer: Did the kid mean to throw it at the force?
Soldier: No, he was the furthest away, he wasn’t endangering my friend who shot him with his marksman’s rifle.
Interviewer: And he killed him?
Soldier: Yes.
Interviewer: How old was the kid?
Soldier: Young, 16 years old. (Ramallah 2008)

“ We had lots of X’s [Note: Marked on the side of a soldier’s rifle, indicating the number of people he’s killed] at that time. The battalion loved it. There was an ambush around there where a kid coming up with a Molotov cocktail had his leg blown off. They laid ambush exactly at that spot. Kids came, the soldiers were there, the kids lit a bottle, and they were shot in the leg (Ramallah 2008).

No shame to capture violations on camera

A soldier tells about  two other soldiers who there were excited by their first action in Hebron in which a Palestinian boy was detained for throwing stones. The boy denied he had done so. The two excitted soldiers “had their pictures taken with him.” In response to the question if the boy objected, the soldier said, “No, he was blindfolded, he didn’t know” (Hebron 2007-2008).

During a training, a driver showed me pictures of two kids they had caught, shackled, and kicked. “He showed me the video he took on his cell phone. Sitting shackled, and some soldier walks by and – pow – kicks them in the back or something (Jalame, Jenin 2008).

There was this saying: “We have a detainee.” [The soldier talks about child detainees]. Soldiers wanted to have their picture taken. Usually they were not allowed to do so, but sometimes they did. It was done, but it wasn’t actually permitted. As though it didn’t happen, but everyone did it. People would video tape themselves, they made clips. “Say ‘Advanced Company’ is the bomb, come on, say it!” Finally, some action (Gaza Strip 2008).

First published at Electronic Intifada.

AUTHOR: Adri Nieuwhof
URL: http://www.samora.org
E-MAIL: a.nieuwhof [at] samora.org

Roshni, who is in her late thirties, has a Bachelors degree in Education, a Masters degree in Child Education and an MBA in Educational Management. She has plenty of teaching experience, including as a PYP (Primary Years Programme) coordinator in an international school in Bangalore, and also serves on the board of trustees in a reputed school in Bangalore. Her interests lie in home schooling, e-learning, special education and international curriculum planning.

However, Roshni prefers to talk about her role as counselor of CRISP, a Bangalore-based NGO, that was founded a few years ago by Kumar Jahgirdar, among others, to combat the serious effects of parental alienation on children of divorced/separated parents. CRISP is concerned by the growing number of custody battles over children, and the consequent effect it has on young minds.

The organisation is pushing for reforms in family laws such as granting of immediate and equal child access to separated parents within 30 days from the date of filing for divorce and making co-parenting mandatory. It wants all cases related to custody of children to be disposed of within six months of application and punishment for misuse of laws, particularly related to dowry harassment and domestic violence.

Roshni counsels young men whose wives have resorted to the anti-dowry law and Domestic Violence (DV) Act to harass their husbands and deny them access to their own children. She feels women are, by and large, better communicators and are able to win the sympathy of judges in courts, thanks to their glib talk and persuasive manner. She says that it doesn’t matter if the husband is right — the courts are almost always swayed by the better communicator (the wife in nearly all cases), even when she is wrong.

Roshni counsels men and young fathers on how to communicate better and get their point across to others so that they can be heard. She says it doesn’t matter if the husband is highly educated. “All too often, I counsel MBAs and engineers from IITs who are simply unable to correspond effectively,” she says. “Men need to learn to communicate so that the harassment they are suffering on account of gender biased laws is brought to light.” Roshni has appeared on many television programmes to voice her demands for children’s rights, and she also wants safeguards to come into place so that men do not have to suffer because of the rampant abuse of laws that were made to protect women, such as Sec 498A IPC and the DV Act. These laws, she feels, are grossly biased against men as husbands who face abuse at the hands of their wives cannot take recourse to the DV Act to demand justice. The anti-dowry law (Sec 498A IPC) is often used by vengeful wives to harass entire families, including aged in-laws, married and pregnant sisters-inlaw and young brothers-in-law, apart from the husband. And, thanks to our judicial system, the courts take many years to deliver a verdict. Convictions in cases filed under these Acts are low, and many times innocent people have to run from pillar to post, and putting their lives on hold for many years, to prove themselves not guilty.

India is a secular democracy and everybody should stand equal before the law, says Roshni. But the laws of the land have been heavily tilted against men and in favour of women, especially in the marital sphere. For instance, even when a man declines dowry, the girl often comes with abaggage of wealth. If anything goes wrong, it is the husband and his family who get the legal boot. “I’m a warrior for women’s rights, but I strongly believe that agood number of men are suffering ignominies for no fault of theirs,” she adds.

Roshni says the National Commission for Women, and Health and Family Welfare both deal with issues confronting women. However, forget a ministry, there is not even a platform for men. She believes that there must be more awareness that men are not always aggressors who ill-treat women. They often share responsibility for the entire family. They ought to get equal justice at the hands of society, the judiciary and the media. “This is an argument for gender parity, not dominance,” she adds.

Roshni is also concerned about daughters facing abuse, deprivation, neglect and maltreatment in their natal homes. She has launched the ‘All India Daughters Protection Forum’ and regularly blogs on how children, especially daughters, need to be protected from exploitative parents, relatives and siblings. She wants inheritance rights for daughters in their parental homes and she is also demanding an integrated approach to the protection of the rights of daughters. The forum, Roshni says, is also against false allegations of domestic violence and dowry against husbands and in-laws. False charges, says Roshni, is tantamount to legal abuse and is an affront to real victims.

Roshni hopes to continue blogging and counselling until any real change comes about towards the problems of men in society. This is one determined lady who has vowed to make a difference.

By Nivedita Choudhuri, guest author about Roshni Mathan Pereira (author of NL-Aid).

AUTHOR: Roshni Pereira
URL: http://voiceofwomenindia.blogspot.com
E-MAIL: roshniper [at] gmail.com

This video, shot by the Research Journalism Initiative, shows Israeli soldiers using Palestinian children as human shields in Balata refugee camp near Nablus in the occupied West Bank in 2007. 

Two more such incidents – in Tulkarm and Hebron – are reported in a new publication from the Israeli veterans’ organization Breaking The Silence with disturbing testimonies from Israeli soldiers about the maltreatment of Palestinian children under Israeli occupation.

Children are exposed to a harsh daily reality of constant friction with occupation forces, arrests, violence, intimidation and harassment. They are wounded or killed because soldiers ignore them at the scene of events, or by targeting them directly, sometimes at random. The disturbing actions the soldiers describe — some undoubtedly amounting to war crimes —  took place in the occupied Palestinian territories between 2005-2011. This post is the first of two which summarize shocking examples of the abuse of children by Israeli forces.

Using children as human shields

Two soldiers testified how children were used as human shields. In Tulkarm in 2005, the “neighbor procedure” was used in an arrest mission.

Usually a resident of the neighboring house is summoned and required to enter the wanted person’s home and call all its inhabitants to come outside. “We got all the people out. No one was the wanted person. We feared he was still there, inside. So at first neighbors were used, then some kid. Bilal, I even recall his name. I remember because I got very angry over this. And they kept sending him into that house to check that no one was inside, open all the doors, turn on all the lights, open all the windows.”

“So there’s a school there. We’d often provoke riots there. We’d be on patrol, walking in the village, bored, so we’d trash shops, find a detonator, beat someone to a pulp, you know how it is,” said a soldier relating incidents in Hebron in 2006-2007. “Search, mess it all up. Say we’d want a riot? We’d go up to the windows of a mosque, smash the panes, throw in a stun grenade, make a big boom, then we’d get a riot,” he continued.

Once, “We fired a lot of rubber ammo. A lot. Every time we’d catch Arab kids, hold them like this, with stones, like retards. You know, so that the others would throw stones at them, not at us.” When asked if the children were turned in human shields, the soldier replied “Yes.” The kids cannot run away, he explains, because they will be badly beaten. “You catch him, push the gun against his body, he can’t make a move, he’s totally petrified.”

Use of handcuffs for torture

In 2009, the Israeli army’s Kfir Brigade was ordered to take over a school in the town of Salfit in the occupied West Bank and turn it in into a detention facility. Anyone between 17 and 50 years had to be arrested to collect information for the Shabak (Israel Security Agency), however, even 14-year-old children were brought in.

People arrived blindfolded and shackled. “There are soldiers who know what the point of the [plastic] handcuff is, and then there are others, who think that it is meant as a device to stop blood flow from the wrist to the fingertips. [T]hey think it should be on so tight that no blood can get through.”

Many people were very tightly shackled “and they were begging to be released just a bit. Eventually, after they cried and complained, the company commander ordered them released, and after a while [about seven hours] they even had their hands in front instead of behind their backs. It takes time for hands to turn blue. Not everyone had blue hands, but many people already turned numb.”

The operation lasted from morning until noon the next day. Detainees had to stay the whole time blindfolded and shackled in the sun. When they asked to go to the bathroom, they were beaten to pulp and cursed at for no reason by the soldiers who took them there. A 15-year-old child was taken the bathroom “to piss and a soldier slapped him, took him down to the ground while he was shackled and blindfolded. Just like that, because he is an Arab.”

“Choose someone, aim at his body.”

A soldier who served during 2006-2007 in Nablus explains that when children hit you with stones, you don’t get out of the jeep. “You shoot through the loophole.” Asked “Do you choose some kid at random?” a soldier replied “Yes. Choose someone, aim at his body.”

“I remember one time we put a kid down. We didn’t kill him but someone hit the kid in the chest and he fell and probably lost consciousness, or at least, it was pretty close. About 10 meters.”

The soldier stated that his brigade was not instructed in how to use rubber ammunition. “There are rules. They tell you to shoot four. There’s this cluster of rubber bullets, pieces with four parts, packed in a kind of nylon. You can break it in two, so it’s stronger and flies further. As soon as it’s four it’s less strong and flies less far. We’d usually break it in half. [W]e figured it out ourselves. It’s something that’s common knowledge in the army.”

Interviewer: “As soon as this pack of rubber bullets is broken in half, it becomes lethal.

Soldier: “Really? Well, that’s what we did.”

Interviewer: “We did, too. As soon as the ‘tampons’ are separated, they’re lethal. The nylon must not be removed.”

Soldier: “Not removed?!”

Interviewer: “No.”

Soldier: “We barely fired a whole cluster, I mean four. It’s like you want to save ammo, too.”

Violence against Palestinian children

The booklet presents numerous examples of shocking violence against children.

• “At first you point your gun at some five-year-old kid, and feel bad afterward, saying it’s not right. Then you get to a point where… you get so nervous and sick of going into a village and getting stones thrown at you. But it’s obvious, you’re inside the village, you’ve just passed the school house, naturally the kids will throw stones at you. Once my driver got out, and without blinking, just grabbed some kid and beat him to a pulp. And that kid was just sitting in the street and looked like some other kid, or wore another kid’s shirt, or perhaps he was that kid but that’s not the point” (Nablus in 2005).
• “We’d go on two night patrols in the designated area. I was driving and suddenly I see some Arab boy, about 18 years old, with his face mangled, really bad. He had a black eye, his lip was torn, in really bad shape. So I stop, offer him water, and he points at my jeep and say the license plate number was 06543, so he goes: “No, 0666 hit me.” I don’t understand what he wants from me and then the other jeep arrives. The sergeant in it says: “See how I handled him?” (Bethlehem 2006-2007).
• “Kids would throw stones at us, we’d catch some kid who happened to be there and beat him to a pulp. Even if he didn’t throw stones. He would know who did. ‘Who is it? Who is it?’ Finally he’d tell us who did it.” The soldiers gives an example of the heavy beating of 10-year-old child which is suspected of throwing stones. “That commander had no mercy. Really. Anyway the kid could no longer stand on his feet and was already crying. He couldn’t take it anymore. He cried. The commander shouted: ‘Stand up!’ Tried to make him stand but he couldn’t. He really couldn’t. From so much beating he just couldn’t stand up. The commander goes: ‘Don’t put on a show,’ and kicks him some more.” In response to the question “If I were a Palestinian, what would I get beaten up for?”, a soldier replies “It was enough for you to give us a look that we didn’t like, straight in the eye, and you’d be hit on the spot. We got to such a state and were so sick of being there, you know what I mean” (Hebron 2006-2007).
• “There was another instance of a 14-year old, an illegal alien. He was detained, kept on the side, so he stood there and hummed to himself. This annoyed one of the guys. He went up to him and said: ‘Something amusing you?’ The kid said: ‘Yes, gotta keep my spirits up.’ ‘Spirits up, eh?’ and the soldier slapped his face” (Tulkarm 2008).
• A commander who wanted to to detain a child, “tore him away from his dad’s leg and we put the kid in the jeep. I did nothing at that point. At the end of the day, something has to make these kids stop throwing stones on the road because they can kill. That specific kid who actually lay there on the ground, begging for his life, was actually nine years old. I think of our kids, nine years old, and a kid handling this kind of situation, I mean, a kid has to beg for his life? A loaded gun is pointed at him and he has to plead for mercy? This is something that scars him for life” (Qalqiliya 2007).
• Following a riot at Qalandiya, there was an ambush put up in an abandoned house in Ramallah. “Soldiers got out with army clubs and beat people to a pulp. Finally the children who remained on the ground were arrested. The order was to run, make people fall to the ground. There was a 10-12 man team, 4 soldiers lighting up the area. People were made to fall to the ground, and then the soldiers with the clubs [a 30 centimeters long wooden club] would go over to them and beat them. A slow runner was beaten, that was the rule. We were told not to use it on people’s heads. I don’t remember where we were told to hit, but as soon as a person on the ground is beaten with such a club, it’s difficult to be particular” (Ramallah 2006-2007).

My next post will contain examples related to arrests and detention of Palestinian children, the order to shoot in case of suspicion of Molotov cocktails, and the practice of documenting abuse.

First published at Electronic Intifada.
AUTHOR: Adri Nieuwhof
URL: http://www.samora.org
E-MAIL: a.nieuwhof [at] samora.org

“Child maltreatment has harmful long-term consequences, not only for the children suffering the abuse, but also for the families and societies in which they live,” UNICEF’s Regional Child Protection Specialist, Amalee McCoy, said in a news release. “Understanding the prevalence of child maltreatment is a first step towards identifying the right measures to make every child in the region safer” (UN News Center).

In the report, all facets of abuse — emotional, physical, sexual, child labor, etc. — were studied to give an overview of all aspects and effects of maltreatment in the region.  While the levels of abuse varied by country, the overall results remain shocking.  The reports research revealed such shocking statistics as one in three North Korean children and nearly four out of five Chinese children report experiencing emotional abuse. Child labor was also a notably common form of abuse, ranging from 6.5 percent in Vietnam to 56 percent in a fishing area in Cambodia.

The report estimates of the frequency of physical abuse of children vary from country to country and from study to study, but  found that the best case scenario suggests 1 in 10 children experience physical abuse whereas the worst case scenario illustrates that some 30.3 per cent of children suffering abuse.  The decade of research found that between 14 percent and 30 percent of both boys and girls reported being forced into sexual acts or intercourse.   The prevalence of girls forced into sexual acts being higher for girls in most all cases.  For example, in Cambodia, 51.2 percent of girls — compared with 1.9 percent of boys — reported having been forced to have sexual intercourse.

The effects of the physical and sexual abuse on children, while cumulative, have led to many long-term effects such as depression, high-risk behavior and mental health issues. Children who are victims of abuse, neglect, exploitation — whether verbal, physical or sexual — or experience violence are more likely to be depressed and experience other types of mental health problems, to think about or attempt suicide, to have more physical problems – that can be both medically explained and unexplained – and to engage in more high-risk behaviors than their non-abused counterparts.

The report’s findings were reviewed the following week by child protection experts from various governments, the U.N. and civil society members at a meeting in Bangkok, Thailand.  However, follow-up reports have not yet been issued.  The report, while a milestone in seeking to address the all-encompassing issues of maltreatment and abuse of children in the region, is only one of many necessary steps we must take to end the abuse of children.  Despite the best efforts of the many who work daily to address this problem, we continue to fall far short in applying our knowledge.  Hopefully this report will lead to increased measures of protection and prevention in the region.

AUTHOR: Cassandra Clifford
URL: www.bridgetofreedomfoundation.org and http://children.foreignpolicyblogs.com
E-MAIL: Cassandra [at] btff.org