Children – Third Cttee debate – Summary record (excerpts)

Fifty-second session

Official Records

Third Committee

Summary record of the 22nd meeting

Held at Headquarters, New York, on Friday, 31 October 1997, at 3 p.m. 

Contents

Agenda item 108: Promotion and protection of the rights of children (continued)

The meeting was called to order at 3.10 p.m.

Agenda item 108: Promotion and protection of the rights of children (continued) (A/52/523, A/52/348, A/52/482, A/52/437, A/52/447-S/1997/775, A/52,90, A/52/116-S/1997/317, A/C.3/52/3)

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26. Ms. Abdelrazek (Permanent Observer Mission of Palestine to the United Nations) said that Palestinian children had known only a life of Israeli occupation and of dispersal. They belonged to a generation of strugglers who were trying to survive the many injustices of occupation, paying a high price in the form of death, detention, psychological trauma, lack of education and handicaps. Their physical and psychological condition was being negatively affected by violent confrontations, human rights abuses, demolition of their homes, confiscation of family land, curfews, travel bans, school closures and administrative detentions. With regard to that last violation, it should be noted that Israel could detain a minor for 90 days without any visitors, and had 250 Palestinian children in its prisons. In 1996, despite the peace process, 29 children had been killed and 109 others had been injured in confrontations with the Israeli army and the Israeli settlers. In addition, the closures imposed by Israel had retarded the development of Palestinian children because they deprived the families of the income needed to care for the children, who often had to seek work.

27. In order to address the needs of children, the Ministry for Youth and Sports had established local and national departments and formulated a national plan of action which would be implemented in cooperation with the Ministries of Planning, Social Affairs and Education and with various international institutions, especially the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and UNICEF. The Palestinian Authority had also established a Palestinian child’s day and a Palestinian child’s week, and with assistance from UNRWA had implemented several programmes for children and youth under which new schools and playgrounds had been built and textbooks had been provided to pupils.

28. In the light of the economic crisis in the territory, the Palestinian Authority called on the international community to increase its assistance to Palestinian children in order to improve their situation in the occupied Palestinian territory, including Jerusalem, and in neighbouring Arab States. Although the peace process had seriously deteriorated, it was to be hoped that in future Palestinian children would have new opportunities for growth, learning and development.

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The meeting rose at 5.50 p.m.

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