For a long time now Silwan has suffered from several political and economic conditions which have negatively impacted the life of children from this area. These children represent 50% of the resident population in Silwan, furthermore, approximately 75% of these children live under the poverty line. These factors have resulted in the forced labor of children into dangerous and violent jobs after school.
There does not exist a proper infrastructure to provide any public facilities to serve children’s recreational needs such as a gym, a park, a playground, or a community center. Further increasing the problem is the fact that schools in Silwan are at full capacity thus unable to provide education to everyone living in the community. As a result a majority of students must daily embark on an arduous journey to learn at schools within other villages.
However, the struggle for Silwanian children extends past these infrastructural challenges. The political situation poses consequences that affect their social life and personal development. Children grow up into an atmosphere consisting of a permanent presence in the village of armed settlers in heavily guarded settlements which threaten daily life of the children by disallowing for the establishment of a ‘regular’ routine, in effect posing a negative impact upon the children’s mental health. Incidents of settler’s firing live ammunition upon children are not uncommon stories to the children here. We recall the case of Amir Froukh who took a bullet to the leg while he was riding his bicycle in front of the “City of David” settlement. This is the reality of the struggle the children face here. http://silwanic.net/?p=334
This is just one of many other ongoing attacks geared toward children on the settler’s behalf. It is typical to have settler’s or their guards place complaints to the Israeli police about the children in the village. There was an instance where a complaint was placed against Mountasser Faraj a child of the village whose afterschool job consists of collecting scrap metal. A guard from the settler’s organization complained to the Isreali police about Mountasser while he was collecting metal near the settlement of the “City of David.” Eyewitnesses intervened at the scene of the confrontation where they say the guard pointing his gun directly at the child. The next day the police came and arrested Mountasser and took him into the police station to conduct and investigation, later releasing him under house arrest. Another notorious example of the violation of children’s rights here is one of a settler placing a complain to the police against a child who he claimed had assaulted him six months ago. Needless to say, the overdue nature of the complain did not deter the police from arresting the child. http://silwanic.net/?p=2574
Children are subjected to physical and verbal assault when arrested and investigated. Ahmed Dawood Siyam’s case is an example of the heinous tactics employed against children. On January 10 2010, Ahmed was taken from his house by police forces in the early hours of the morning. The police tied his hands and took him to the police station without informing his father on the cause of his son’s detention.
The most well known case occurred on April 1 of this year when Israeli police stormed the Silwan Madaa Creative Center to arrest Yazan Siyam. http://silwanic.net/?p=2004
The Madaa Creative Center was established through the efforts of local villagers in 2007 in order to provide services through various activities and events for children in an attempt to compensate for a part of what they lose as children exposed to the situation in Silwan. In regards to Yazan’s arrest, a staff member commented: “The Center was established, despite the difficult circumstances and challenges faced by the community. The founders created a safe space for children without any funding from the Israeli government but now the Israeli forces come in and storm the place physically assaulting and verbally abusing the staff in order to arrest a child. The only safe space that exists as a creative outlet away from the settlers and guards for the Silwanian children has been made unsafe by having its security threatened. ” Yazan was arrested within the center on grounds of assaulting settlers. He was brought to trial and released to spend a week under house arrest. His family paid an amount of 4500NIS in fines and release.
It is worth noting that the Israeli police do not hesitate to implement arrests of children in Silwan whether it be in response to a settler’s complain or not. This disposition has increased the number of arrests that specifically target children in Silwan. The residents of Silwan have been angered by this increase of child arrests and they have openly critiqued the Israeli Authorities who they consider unfair and abusive in their continuous attempts to please the settlers and morally support them through a discriminatory implementation of the law. These repeated arrests have drawn the attention of both the local public as well as the Arab media. Additionally, certain civil rights and human rights organizations have published reports on the police’s violations of children’s rights in its’ arrests of the Silwanian children. http://silwanic.net/?p=1579
On the other hand, we find Israeli settler youths attacking Palestinians in exactly the same way as the Palestinian are accused of attacking Israelis – “the throwing of stones” – but they do not face the same repercussions. http://silwanic.net/?p=2561
There are also many instances of settler youths being far more aggressive or provocative without being punished. For example, there have been cases of them climbing to the roofs of Palestinian homes and planting Israeli flags provocatively upon them.http://silwanic.net/?p=2281
And let us not forget the children who live under the psychological pressure and tension of constantly awaiting the possible arrival of the Israeli authorities to demolish their homes. In Silwan, there are more than 216 house demolition orders currently issued. They are issued to those who are accused of ‘building without a permit’, despite the fact that, due to Israeli planning rules, it is simply not possible to obtain the necessary permission to build.
There is no doubt that all this threatens the security and integrity of social life in the village, and puts children in a psychological state of disrepair. The director of the Madaa Creative Center in Silwan said, “The children of Silwan, like other children of the world, love life and have the right to express themselves. We must work to provide better conditions for them and for other children and to offer them the opportunity to express themselves – they deserve better. In these circumstances, children choose to stand in the frontline”.
