Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv
Israel
- Human rights
PACD is comprised of a board of seven members, two part-time paid staffers (Executive Director and Resource Development Coordinator) and a few dozen core activists.
In 2021 we raised resources to hire a freelance spokesperson, outsource social media campaigns to professional content creators.
PACD’s board and staff members are experienced Israeli activists with profound knowledge of the human rights situation in the OPT. We have successfully initiated and implemented public activities (campaigns, street exhibitions, conferences, testimony readings, visit with detainees families and communities) in cooperation with prominent Israeli human rights orgs, and have begun to expand public discourse on Palestinian minors’ detention.
PACD's annual budget is 82,000 Euros and we are funded by a myriad of sources including the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, New Israel Fund, Embassy of Switzerland in Israel, EMHRF and private donors.
Parents Against Child Detention (PACD) is a grassroots Israeli organization, established in 2018 by a group of Israeli parents deeply concerned about the harm Palestinian children endure under Israeli occupation. PACD recognized that no other organization had taken upon itself to raise awareness amongst the Israeli public about Palestinian child detention and the systematic violation of their rights, let alone represent and mobilize Israeli opposition through public pressure on decision makers. Israeli authorities detain hundreds of Palestinian minors annually in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Children as young as 12 years old are detained - the arrest is often aggressive and in the middle of the night, many times they are not allowed to consult with a lawyer before their interrogation and their parents are not present during interrogation or informed of their location. Palestinian minors are often kept in remand for the duration of proceedings against them.
PACD’s overall goal is to end the violations of Palestinian children’s rights in detention, interrogation and arrest proceedings, and to reduce the number of Palestinian children arrested, interrogated and imprisoned. Our objectives are:
• Raising public awareness and support for the protection of Palestinian minors.
• Placing public pressure on decision-makers to enact change.
• Including the best interest of the child principle in Palestinian minors’ criminal proceedings.
Public awareness of the personal and communal damage caused to Palestinian children by violating their basic rights is key to mobilizing wider public support, grant us a seat at the table in official forums, guarantee entrance into the mainstream media as experts, and provide a basis for legal arguments in court appeals.
Activities for 2021-2022 include:
1. Collating data and create professional position papers. PACD currently works on recruiting groups of Israeli professionals in the fields of mental health, education and law. These professionals take part in various guided site visits to military prisons, meet with families of detainees, tour Palestinian neighborhoods and sit down with Palestinian educators and activists. In return these groups develop written relevant expert opinions from their professional perspectives.
2. Gather personal testimonies to be used in public campaigns. Our team plans to glean relevant data from human rights organizations’ reports, interviewing detainees and their families, creating videos of personal testimonies of detention and the aftermath.
3. Submission in legal proceedings. PACD will continue to collaborate with other Human Rights organizations so to submit expert professional opinions (gathered by our groups) in court processes, and to present these in meetings with decision makers to ensure the issue of child detention gets a fair hearing in the wider Israeli public arena.
4. Public awareness and Impact. Using the expert opinions, personal testimonies and facts from the reports, PACD will outreach to audiences beyond our original supporters - using social media, public activities, and traditional media outlets. Faces of PACD - Previously we recruited public figures and professionals as advocates to raise public awareness of the impact of child detention on Palestinian children, families and communities. We will continue to use this method as experts delivering professional opinions and public figures’ involvement draw interest and give weight to our arguments within the mainstream Israeli society, with the potential to generate support from diverse perspectives and to expand PACD’s outreach to new audiences.
5. Increase Supporter and Funder Base: Engage our community through quarterly reports, regular newsletters, VIP invites to events, updates, zoom meetings, petitions, small community meetings, internal supporter brainstorming sessions and more.
PACD is the only organization in Israel that focuses entirely on public advocacy against Palestinian minors’ rights violations during arrests and detention vis a vis the Israeli public and Israeli decision-makers.
Other organizations that are engaged with the issue of child detention have different focuses and/or different modes of action: for example, ‘B’Tselem’ is an information centre, while ‘Military Court Watch’ is an international organization that does not aim to reach the Israeli public. PACD has been in close contact with these and other organizations working to halt Palestinian rights violations and abuses.
PACD can contribute to the Network by being the direct contact with the Israeli public on promoting human rights, equality and tolerance.
A foundation like yours, can understand that we are a new organization that does not yet have an organized and orderly infrastructure of veteran supporters and an international community that knows us and supports us regularly. In order to create a community of supporters we must continue vigorously in our activities, increase our visibility and create commitment but these efforts will surely only bear fruit within time. We are making great efforts to raise resources both from within Israel and from international sources, private donors and from foundations. The main responses we have received have been positive, yet the corona crisis has diverted a large part of the available resources to other places. It is in light of this I would like to join the ALF network for exposure, connections, community support and fundraising opportunities.