Defense for Children International - Palestine

DCIP is committed to securing a just and viable future for Palestinian children. We seek to defend and protect children growing up in an environment where perpetrators of human rights violations enjoy impunity. Ours is a comprehensive approach focusing on human rights monitoring, evidence-based advocacy, awareness-raising and direct legal services with the combined impact of exposing and mitigating ongoing violence against children. Since Israel's occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip in 1967, children in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) have inhabited an environment characterized by violence and instability. Today, these children continue ... read more DCIP is committed to securing a just and viable future for Palestinian children. We seek to defend and protect children growing up in an environment where perpetrators of human rights violations enjoy impunity. Ours is a comprehensive approach focusing on human rights monitoring, evidence-based advocacy, awareness-raising and direct legal services with the combined impact of exposing and mitigating ongoing violence against children. Since Israel's occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip in 1967, children in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) have inhabited an environment characterized by violence and instability. Today, these children continue to face physical violence, restricted access to education and psychological trauma at the hands of Israeli forces and settlers. Since 2000, Israeli forces and settlers have killed over 2,000 Palestinian children and at least 9,500 have been arrested and prosecuted in an Israeli military detention system notorious for ill-treatment and torture. Since our founding in 1991, we have supported and advocated for this child population by investigating and documenting grave human rights violations, holding both Israeli and Palestinian authorities to account, and providing legal services to children in urgent need. We remain the only Palestinian human rights organization specifically focused on child rights. Our highest value is the pursuit of each child's best interests. To this end, we are guided by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, as well as other international, regional, and local standards. Over the last 25 years, DCIP has earned a reputation as a highly effective and deeply rooted local organization with experience in a range of fields. Today, we work across the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza, to monitor and document human rights abuses against children; defend and protect Palestinian children suffering violations within the Palestinian Authority; and promote the participation and empowerment of children so they can address their own rights situation. We also implement innovative evidence-based advocacy campaigns at the domestic, regional, and international level. We currently operate out of a main office in Ramallah, and three other offices that cover the rest of the West Bank and Gaza.