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Summary: International Conference "Kids Behind Bars":
30 June - 2 July 2005. Keynote speech of
newly elected DCI/PS President, Rifat Kassis.
Welcome to the conference, welcome to Bethlehem, welcome to Palestine.
It is, I think, appropriate that this international conference is taking place
in this historic city, which has for so long been the focal point for
international travellers seeking justice and peace. Now it is our turn to
take part in a historic event – in this room we have representatives from all
over the world: from Europe and Africa, the Middle East and Asia, from
North and South America and Australia. As individuals and as organizations
we represent governments, the UN and civil society. We are all gathered to
talk, to listen to learn and ultimately to work together to protect the rights
of all children who come into conflict with the law.
In this respect it is also sadly appropriate that this conference is taking
place in Bethlehem. Life behind bars is a reality for children in Palestine.
Even those who are not arrested are in prison – surrounded by walls and
monitored by armed guards. You have seen what I’m talking about when
you entered our city – you crossed the checkpoint and passed through the
concrete wall that forms the backdrop to life here.
This wall is scarring our landscape and scarring our lives. Thousands of
acres of some of the most fertile land in our country has been confiscated
to make way for the wall; houses and building have been demolished and
hundreds of thousands of olive trees, which have stood for centuries on
these hills have been uprooted.
When completed, the wall will stretch 670 kilometres, not just around the
West Bank, but cutting deep inside Palestinian territory, trapping
Palestinians in so-called closed areas between the pre-1967 border and
the Wall. Somewhere between 50-90,000 Palestinians will be confined to
these areas and half a million other Palestinians will live less than a
kilometres away from the barbed wire, trenches, electric monitors and
concrete blocks that form the barrier.
The effect on our children is immeasurable – many have been forced from
their homes and seen the land they should one day inherit, annexed or
destroyed. Their family income is falling as parents are unable to reach
their work or harvest their fields and with less income comes fewer
opportunities – children are forced to drop out of school to help
supplement household earnings. Even those whose families can still afford
to send them to school, face declining standards of education – for the wall
prevents students and teachers alike from reaching the classrooms. Gate
opening times are left to the whim of passing Israeli soldiers, with the
result that hundreds of students are regularly late for lessons and exams.
The continuous construction of the wall is having an even more profound
effect on the already precarious health care system. Soon almost one-third
of West Bank villages will be severely restricted from accessing healthcare
services. Already 26 local clinics are disconnected from the Palestinian
health care system and it’s estimated this will rise to 71 once the wall has
been completed. Although supposedly open for emergency cases, we have
all heard of incidents when ambulances carrying critically ill or injured
children have been turned back from the gates in the wall. Each month,
some newborn infant takes a first breath in life on the roadside while
soldiers deliberate whether his or her birth constitutes a medical
emergency.
It is not only physically, but psychologically too that children are suffering –
the concrete blocks and razor wire separates them from extended families,
from friends, from places to play, from opportunities in life. They are
hemmed in, suffocating, unable to escape; their dreams are being crushed
by the wall.
Ironically, the construction of this prison wall is resulting in more
Palestinian children being sent to Israeli prisons. Since the start of this
intifada, more than 3,000 children have been arrested by Israeli occupation
forces. They suffer abuses at the hands of their captors that no detainee,
regardless of age, should endure. They are beaten, blindfolded, cursed
and threatened – and this just during the transfer from the site of arrest to
the detention centre.
Once taken to these centres scattered in Israeli military camps or Jewish
settlements in the West Bank, children as young as 13 are subjected to
prolonged, humiliating, intimidating and often brutal interrogations.
Detained under military orders, Palestinian children are routinely denied
access to lawyers until they confess, they never see their family or a social
worker, they are not informed of their rights and they are forced to sign
documents in Hebrew – a language very few Palestinian children
understand.
After questioning children are transferred to prisons inside Israel in direct
contravention of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Here the maltreatment
continues: cells are overcrowded and unhygienic, the little food that is on
offer is old and bad, metal panels over the windows block out fresh air and
daylight; education is rarely provided – subjects such as religion, history
and geography are banned on the grounds they pose a security threat.
Collective punishments are routinely imposed: children are fined, beaten,
sprayed with tear gas, placed in isolation and forbidden from contact with
family and the outside world.
DCI/PS works for these children – both those behind bars and those
behind walls. Our mission is to promote and protect their rights here in
Palestine and across the world. We work with the children, their families
and communities, and with our friends and partners both here and
overseas.
Our legal unit works on both the Israeli and Palestinian level – providing
free legal representation for Palestinian children before the Israeli military
authorities and protecting the rights of those children who find themselves
in conflict with the law in areas under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian
Authority. We monitor conditions of detention in both areas and, on the
Palestinian level, engage actively in the legislative process, working to
ensure that the needs and rights of children are incorporated into the legal
framework and providing training to enhance the capacity and knowledge
of those working in the field of juvenile justice.
Fieldworkers across the occupied territories monitor and document the
daily catalogue of human rights violations perpetrated against our children.
With a heavy heart we have recorded the death of more than 700 children
at the hands of Israeli forces since this intifada began, we know that more
than 9,000 have been injured. In last year alone over four thousand, eight
hundred children were left homeless when their houses were destroyed by
Israeli bulldozers or helicopter gunships. This data, combined with our
unique field experience enables us to publish regular reports on the
situation of children in the OPT and to campaign with their support and on
their behalf on a local, regional and international level.
Without the empowerment of children, however, our work is only half
complete. Tens of thousands of children have participated in DCI/PS
activities – in field days and workshops, training sessions and conferences
like the children’s conference that took place in Bethlehem earlier this
week. We work with them, with their families and with society to create a
supportive environment in which children can exercise their rights and
participate fully in the development of their state.
We are proud of our children, proud of their achievements in the face of so
many obstacles, proud of their refusal to give up, proud of their optimism.
We take our lead from them and will continue to work with them until such
time that Palestinian children will be able to exercise their right to live with
dignity, with freedom and justice, and will be able to live normal lives, and
experience the real joys of childhood.