Children's Rights, State Criminality and Settler Colonialism: Violence and Child Arrest in Occupied East Jerusalem

• In Event: Islamophobia, Immigration, and Social Control

Abstract

Over the past few years, Palestinian children in Occupied East Jerusalem (OEJ) have faced high rates of arrest (DCI 2011, 2014; UNOCHA OPT 2012; UNICEF 2013; Shalhoub-Kevorkian 2014, 2015). The article examines violence against children during arrest by juxtaposing state official documents recording debates and analyses of children’s rights with published reports by human rights and civil society organisations. The article suggests that arrested children in OEJ suffer from three intersecting discriminatory regimes: structural discrimination that targets them as criminals based on their ethnicity; a lack of assistance as they fall under the responsibility of neither the Palestinian nor the Israeli socio-legal systems; and limited access to welfare, justice, and educational opportunities. The article concludes by suggesting that Palestinian children face severe structural violence that amounts to state-hate criminality.

Authors

• Shalhoub-Kevorkian Nadera, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

• Bella Kovner, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem