Ngo comments on the Initial Israeli State Report on Implementing the un convention on the Rights of the Child
ARTICLE 31—THE RIGHT TO PLAY, LEISURE, RECREATION AND CULTURAL ACTIVITIES
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- Suggested Questions to the Government by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child
- Can the government now introduce a core curriculum in the independent schools, including citizenship education for a democratic state
- ARTICLE 22—THE RIGHT OF REFUGEE CHILDREN TO PROTECTION AND HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE
ARTICLE 31—THE RIGHT TO PLAY, LEISURE, RECREATION AND CULTURAL ACTIVITIES The Israeli State Report does not mention anything about the right to play, which is an important concept in Article 31 of the CRC. An Israeli organization to advocate, research, and consult about the importance of play for the development of the child, “Elhav,” works closely with the International Play Association to support healthy play activities for children. The Israeli Government’s unsatisfactory treatment of the right to play in its State Report certainly reflects the lesser importance the Government has dedicated to this topic (perhaps out of necessity due to its heavy security concerns). When we look at a breakdown of participation of the Israeli Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports in the budgets of cultural institutions. We see that high percentage is given to Community Centers.64 Table 9 Israel Association of Community Centers 23.5% Ultra-Orthodox cultural activities 7.9% Torah Culture 2.8% Immigration and Israeli cultural organizations abroad 1.5% Literature and periodicals 2.6% Theater 16.8% Dance 4.7% Music 8.1% Museums 9.0% Film and popular art 8.2% Corporations 2.4% Libraries 4.3% Other Institutions 8.0% It is extremely problematic that libraries account for only 4.3% of such spending, since libraries provide for the best and cheapest form of informal education. Some towns and many urban neighborhoods do not have a library at all. However, an encouraging sign regarding leisure reading is the fact that 63% of Jewish students in grades 9-12 and 58% of Arab students in the corresponding grades report that they read a daily newspaper. Seventy-four percent of the Arab population of the same age reports that they read books regularly, as do 68% of the Jewish population. 65 With such interest in reading, were the government to dedicate greater efforts to opening libraries, they would surely serve a large amount of children. There is a lack of publication of Arab books for children in Israel. Community centers and youth movements form the core of organized youth cultural activities. The Association of Community Centers in Israel is an extremely well developed institution, focusing on children and youth and offering a wide range of courses and activities, subsidized by the Government; it oversees the work of 180 community centers. In addition, there are many community centers not under the umbrella of this organization, (such as twenty community centers of the Tel Aviv municipality, for instance). Twenty-five percent of Israeli youth in secondary schools participate in youth movement activities, 25% participate in community center activities, and 27% participate in voluntary activities apart from the school curriculum.66 Community centers are also established in the periphery, Arab towns, and some unrecognized villages. They perform an important function in poor neighborhoods of cities. The Israeli Government provides ample recreational activities for children; however, the opportunities are not equally distributed across different sections of the child population. As with healthcare, there are vast differences between the span and depth of Government sponsored programs in the center of the country and in the periphery. Furthermore, recreational budgets of different towns and neighborhoods vary by tax income and other variables, creating a vastly unequal distribution. The Government does not compensate the Arab population for differences in recreational budgets when cultural activities in the Jewish sector are funded by donations from the Jewish community abroad. Because the Jewish communities abroad (mainly those in Europe and the United States), often fund cultural activities in Israel, such differences between the Jewish and Arab-Israeli sectors are profound. In recent years, however, there has been an increase in funding for Arab Israeli cultural activities from charities around the world. While we cannot count on such charities to compensate for the entire difference in budgets. Until now, the government has not done its share to equalize recreational budgets of different locations across the country. Especially in the Southern part of the country (Beersheva, Ofakim, Kiryat Malahi, Sderot, Tel Sheva, programs tend to be under-funded, and extra effort should be made by the government to help. Also, there are not enough community centers for the Bedouin. If a child needs to travel an hour from his Bedouin village to his or her judo class or music lesson to make it to a city where community centers exists, he/she will probably not make it. Where the Government does spend on recreational activities, they are very often centered on children and formatted to correspond with children’s school vacations. Some cities operate a “youth city” project in the summer with recreational activities (often the first projects to be cut in economic hard-times). Already in 1987, Offir Fegel, the Chairman of the Youth Parliament of the city of Upper Nazareth, said that the lack of leisure-time activities is what leads some youth to violence. Givatayim mayor Yitzhak Yaron warned that the reluctance of politician to accept the political consequences of providing cultural activities for youth on Friday evenings (the Jewish Sabbath) increases the danger of violence among youth.67 (This school of thought obviously believes that partaking in violence is not a choice of the participant, but rather something he is “forced” into by a lack of other leisure activities being provided to him). We believe that with the workday being shortened, children also need to be educated how to positively fill a non-working part of life. Compared with the formal education budget, the non-formal education budget is very small. For children who have difficulty at school or at home, “the third milieu” can strengthen self-esteem. The attitude of the community centers68 is to put the child central and we support these efforts. With so much violence around them constantly, and a growing drug scene, centers fulfill an important function which the politicians have not recognized enough. We propose a new law where the government will pay for every child to participate in at least one activity outside of school a week. Now we have a situation where people who can afford it and want to, go to various activities and lessons, whereas those who can’t afford it or don’t want to, don’t go to activities and lessons and perhaps hang out “on the streets.” The lack of funding for development of activities for children within the Association of Community Centers is appalling. For guidance, training, and development work the Association has only four staff members for a nationwide effort. The last two years youth movements, which were in decline, are again getting more members, probably because the economic situation in Israel deteriorated and many parents can not afford sending their children to expensive activities. According to Celso Garbare of the Hashomer Hatzair Youth Movements, in the youth movements, children can participate in a lot of different activities. Youth movements can be an active partner to advance international human rights and the CRC. Not enough has been done to engage the youth movements. In terms of leisure in prisons for minors, we are unsatisfied. In the Sharon prison’s youth wings, the highest security department (“Brosh”) allows young criminals to leave their cells for only one hour a day, in order to walk around the courtyard (where there is not even a basketball court, because it would result in violence). In jails, (where accused minors wait until the end of the trial) such as the Kishon jail near Haifa, there are no games at all. No ping-pong table, nothing. In the Abu Kabir and Russian Compound jails in Tel Aviv/Jaffa and Jerusalem, the directors at least try to get some games and extra help from the municipalities or NGOs. The police is not at all investing in this, claiming that when minors go to the Sharon prison, they have education and recreation. In most jails, minors lay on their beds most of the time, or smoke cigarettes, or play cards. There is also a great need to develop recreational activities for children with disabilities.69 Hospitals lack child-life specialists who examine the leisure and recreational activities of children in the hospital, something which many countries have. Most hospitals are now equipped with classrooms for children, but do not have any particular places set aside for parents and children to play together. 70 Suggested Questions to the Government by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child:
IX. Special Protection Measures As with many other issues pertaining to children’s rights, the special measures of protection that Israeli law offers children is a highly politicized topic, and the Government’s performance record varies greatly depending on which children are involved and which type of protection measures they require. Overall, in its treatment of Israeli children in conflict with the law, the Government has demonstrated at high degree of interest in implementing its responsibilities under the Convention. The shortcomings tend to be in matters of budgeting and cooperation between the different bodies involved. There are special concerns regarding the 750,000 adolescents. According to the new Interdisciplinary Center for Child and Youth Studies of Tel Aviv University1, nine ministries and most of the local authorities and relevant organizations provide services to youth. There is an urgent need for more research on policy making and the Coalition welcomes the start of the Interdisciplinary Center of Tel Aviv University. The findings of their studies will help to shed light on how decisions of the government are taken, how they can be improved, and what philosophies behind policy-decisions are. For instance, when the Ministry of Labor and Welfare gives aid to a high school dropout, we know that behind this action is a hidden understanding of the youth’s situation, knowledge of his/her difficulties, an understanding of the State’s function in improving his/her situation. Also, there are obviously decisions made in regard to how to assist, and who should do the assisting. According to Netta Harel2, there are many problems among the elements that provide services to youth. Dolev and others (1997) claim that there is a duplicity and overlapping of services given to youth by the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Labor and Welfare. In 2001, the ombudsman reported that only 23% of young people who were cared for by youth advancement departments in municipalities in 1997 were youth who do not either study or work. However, 51% of youngsters who do not study or work were not attended to. The State Comptroller also reported that in over than 100 authorities, there is no unit specific to dealing with youth in difficulty. This data indicates an inefficiency in providing services and shows only duplication of available services that are insufficient to cover the needs of youngsters.3 In its treatment of Palestinian children in the Territories, on the other hand, the Government has demonstrated considerably less good intentions and has not made the appropriate efforts to safeguard children. Still, it must be stressed to the Government’s credit, that even the conditions of Palestinian child residents of the Occupied Territories held in custody while awaiting trial or in imprisonment improved over the last few years, while concern remains for the period of arrest (police violence) and interrogation. ARTICLE 22—THE RIGHT OF REFUGEE CHILDREN TO PROTECTION AND HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE Compared with European countries, Israel does not know the phenomenon of unaccompanied minors arriving at airports or refugee children trying to enter the country with their families. There is an office of an honorary correspondent for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Jerusalem (in the past filled by former UNICEF president Zera Harman and now by Ambassador Bavly)4. In the past, some incredibly humanitarian gestures were made to Vietnamese boat people and Bosnian Muslims (who at the suggestion of former Education Minister Yossi Sarid were absorbed by Kibbutz Ora) and we want to commend the government for having done so. One of the main problems to be solved in the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, now not relevant with the current political situation, is that of Palestinian children (40% of the population of the territories) who have refugee status. The fact that the UN High Commissioner doesn’t address this issue, but rather a special UN agency (UNWRA), is a further sign that this problem is a very deep and broad issue which can only be solved in the greater framework of peace negotiations, of which this is one of the central issues. In the West Bank there are 500,000 people with refugee status and in the Gaza Strip there are 800,000; more than half of them are children. We are not dealing here with a new refugee crisis, in fact some of the children who have refugee status (descendants of people who obtained refugee status) are already fourth- generation. We are dealing here with a consolidated refugee crisis, which emerged fifty years ago. There is additional protection given by UNWRA, who assists in providing education and health services. The UNWRA schools are clearly marked as UN property. A Palestinian refugee is “someone who resided in Palestine for at least two years before 1948, lost his/her home as a result of the 1948-1949 war, and now lives in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, or Lebanon.”5 The definition includes the offspring of the first-generation refugees. Israeli consensus, including most “peace” activists, is that the right of return for the 3.7 million Palestinians (including offspring) would conflict with the right to self-determination of the Jewish people, because it would destroy the State of Israel. Only in a climate that tries to restore trust, in which both sides recognize the enormous trauma of the other, will this issue be able to be discussed. In a time of refueled conflict and daily violence, it becomes increasingly difficult for each side to have empathy for the other. Even if the status of Palestinian refugees can be debated, the additional protection which the blue UN (UNWRA) flags give to refugee facilities should be respected. Violating the UN additional of buildings clearly marked with blue UN flags, protection seems to us a very serious matter. If armed Palestinian groups within the refugee camps engage in terrorist and war activities (such as firing Kassam 2 rockets at Israeli civilians out of refugee camps), the Refugee and Humanitarian law is overruled, and should be avoided by Palestinians. According to UNWRA Commissioner-General Peter Hansen, violations are made by both sides.6 On occasion, outside parties have entered UNWRA schools in the Gaza Strip and shot at Israeli positions. In each such case, UNWRA has strongly protested to the Palestinian Authority and taken measures to hinder entry…In other cases, the IDF have targeted UNWRA schools without cause – for example three weeks ago where IDF responded to a mortar attack at a settlement by firing more than 30 tank shells, 18 of which hit an UNWRA elementary school in Khan Younis causing extensive damage to classrooms...There have also been other incidents where serious damage has been caused to UNWRA schools by the IDF...At the end of October this year, IDF soldiers fired tear gas canisters into an UNWRA school in Hebron and then entered the school…And as I have mentioned, armed Palestinians have on occasion entered UNWRA schools in the Gaza Strip during last year. A serious incursion occurred in October this year, when Palestinian Police Forces entered an UNWRA school and assaulted some of the pupils. Mr. Terje Roed-Larsen, the UN’s special coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process said in a press statement on March 13, 2002: “Only last week, a UN staff member was killed in a clearly marked UNRWA ambulance.” On February 28, 2002, the IDF had to enter refugee camps (the Balata refugee camp near Nablus and another near Jenin) for the first time since the start of the Intifada. Ze’ev Schiff, an analyst of military operations for the Ha’aretz newspaper wrote7:
“Soldiers in full battle dress, riding in tanks and backed by fire from Apache attack helicopters, have ripped their way through large refugee camps. Tanks have torn up roads, missiles have gutted homes and Palestinian Authority offices, and troops have rounded up and questioned all male camp residents between the ages of 15 and 45. Its current methods are causing great civilian suffering and unnecessary humiliation. Indeed, the very public rounding up the camp residents who are then blindfolded appears to be aimed specifically at using humiliation as a tactic. Some of Israel’s own political and military leaders are now saying that such an approach to camp residents is insensitive. Hard-core terrorists from Hamas and other groups appear to have slipped away before the Israeli soldiers entered the camps. It is clear that a large part of the Israeli mission is simply to make the point that nowhere is beyond its soldiers’ reach. Of course, Israel cannot allow Palestinian refugee camps and towns to become terrorist sanctuaries. With Palestinian police failing to make arrests, Israel is justified in sending its own forces after specific terrorist suspects. That can be done without humiliating general roundups of the male population, which are guaranteed to deepen the level of Palestinian anger and make it even harder to imagine a future accord based on peaceful coexistence between the two peoples.”
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