(Jerusalem) – Israeli
settlement farms in the West Bank are using Palestinian child labor to grow,
harvest, and pack agricultural produce, much of it for export, Human Rights
Watch said in a report released today. The farms pay the children low wages and
subject them to dangerous working conditions in violation of international
standards.
The 74-page report, “Ripe for Abuse: Palestinian
Child Labor in Israeli Agricultural Settlements in the West Bank,”
documents that children as young as 11 work on some settlement farms, often in
high temperatures. The children carry heavy loads, are exposed to hazardous
pesticides, and in some cases have to pay themselves for medical treatment for
work-related injuries or illness.
“Israel’s settlements are profiting from rights
abuses against Palestinian children,” said Sarah Leah
Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director. “Children from communities
impoverished by Israel’s discrimination and settlement policies are dropping
out of school and taking on dangerous work because they feel they have no
alternatives, while Israel turns a blind eye.”
Human Rights Watch interviewed 38 children and 12
adults who work on seven settlement farms in the Jordan Valley area, which
covers about 30 percent of the West Bank and where most large agricultural
settlements are located.
Discriminatory Israeli restrictions on Palestinian
access to farmland and water in the West Bank, particularly in the Jordan
Valley, a traditional center of Palestinian agriculture, cost the Palestinian
economy more than US$700 million each year, according to World Bank estimates.
Palestinian poverty rates in the Jordan Valley are up to 33.5 percent, among
the highest anywhere in the West Bank. Some Palestinians lease agricultural
lands from Israeli settlers, to whom Israel allocated the lands after
unlawfully appropriating them from Palestinians.
Israeli policies that support the transfer of
civilians into occupied territory and Israel’s appropriation of land and
resources there for settlements violate Israel’s obligations as the occupying
power under the Fourth Geneva Convention. These violations are compounded by
rights abuses against Palestinians working in the settlements, including
children, Human Rights Watch said. Israel should dismantle the settlements and,
in the meantime, prohibit settlers from employing children in accordance with
Israel’s obligations under international treaties on children’s rights and
labor rights.
Virtually all the Palestinian children Human Rights
Watch interviewed said they felt they had no alternative but to find work on
settlement farms to help support their families.
Israel has allocated 86 percent of the land in the
Jordan Valley to settlements, and provides vastly greater access to water from
the aquifer beneath the valley to the settlement agricultural industry than to
the Palestinians living in the valley. Israeli agricultural settlements export
a substantial amount of their produce abroad, including to Europe and the
United States.
Official statistics are not available, but Israeli
and Palestinian development and labor rights groups estimate that hundreds of
children work in Israeli agricultural settlements year-round, and that their
numbers increase during peak harvesting times.
The children whom Human Rights Watch interviewed said
they had suffered nausea and dizziness. Some said they had passed out while
working in summer temperatures that frequently exceed 40 degrees Celsius
outdoors, and are even higher inside the greenhouses in which many children
work. Other children said they had experienced vomiting, breathing
difficulties, sore eyes, and skin rashes after spraying or being exposed to
pesticides, including inside enclosed spaces. Some complained of back pain
after carrying heavy boxes filled with produce or “backpack” containers of
pesticide.
Israeli labor laws prohibit youth from carrying heavy
loads, working in high temperatures, and working with hazardous pesticides, but
Israel has not applied these laws to protect Palestinian children working in
its settlements. Israeli authorities rarely inspect working conditions for
Palestinians on Israeli settlement farms. The Israeli Defense, Economy, and
Labor Ministries all say that they are studying how to apply more labor
protections for Palestinians working in settlements, but that in the meantime
no authority has a clear mandate to enforce regulations.
Of the children interviewed for the report, 33 had
dropped out of school and were working full-time on Israeli settlements. Of
these, 21 had dropped out before completing the 10 years of basic education
that are compulsory under Palestinian as well as Israeli laws.
“So what if you get an education, you’ll wind up
working for the settlements,” one child said.
Teachers and principals at Palestinian schools in the
Jordan Valley said that children who worked part-time on settlements during
weekends and after school were often exhausted in class.
Israeli military authorities state that they do not
issue work permits for Palestinians under 18 to work in settlements. However,
Palestinians do not need Israeli work permits to reach the settlement farms,
which are outside the gated areas of settlements that Palestinians need permits
to enter.
All of the children and adults working for the
settlement farms whom Human Rights Watch interviewed said they were hired by
Palestinian middlemen working for Israeli settlers, were paid in cash, and did
not receive pay-slips or have work contracts. Israel denies Palestinian
authorities jurisdiction in the settlements as well as much of the Jordan
Valley, but they should do more to enforce laws against child labor by
prosecuting middlemen, Human Rights Watch said.
According to news reports and settlement and company
websites, Europe is a significant export market for settlement agricultural
products, and some products are exported to the US. The EU has moved to exclude
Israeli settlement products from the preferential tariff treatment it provides
to Israeli goods, and EU member states have issued advice to businesses that
they needed to consider the legal, financial, and reputational risks of
involvement with settlement trade, but have not instructed businesses to end
such trade. The US in practice continues to grant preferential treatment to
Israeli settlement products under the US-Israel Free Trade Agreement. The US
should revise the agreement to exclude settlement products. The US Department
of Labor maintains and publishes a list of more than 350 products from foreign
countries that are produced with the use of forced labor or child labor in
other countries, but has not included Israeli settlement products on the list.
Other countries and businesses should uphold their
own responsibilities not to benefit from or contribute to the human rights
abuses against the Palestinians in the West Bank by ending business
relationships with settlements, including imports of settlement agricultural
produce, Human Rights Watch said.
“The settlements are the source of daily abuses,
including against children,” Whitson said. “Other countries and businesses
should not benefit from or support them.”
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