Dealing with alleged child collaborators in the Occupied Palestinian Territories in the spirit of the Convention on the Rights of the Child

It is our pleasure to present this report of the workshop “Dealing with alleged child collaborators in the Occupied Palestinian Territory in the spirit of the Convention on the Rights of the Child”, which took place in Ramallah on 20 April 2005. We hope it will shed some light over one of the most important and sensitive issues regarding child protection in the OPT. We also hope that by raising the profile of this matter we will help bring to an end the Israeli policy of recruiting Palestinian children as collaborators. Moreover, by discussing this topic, we will hopefully be able to begin to change attitudes within the Palestinian society by deepening the local understanding of the enormous pressure to which Palestinian children are subjected and encouraging people to recognize that children are the victims of child collaboration. We also hope that all related international organizations will further investigate and take action to combat this practice, advocate for the best interests of our children, and help protect them from being used by the Israeli intelligence services.