Israeli settlers in occupied territories are exploiting Palestinian children for cheap labor and depriving them of the opportunity to attend school, the Human Rights Watch said Monday.
In a 74-page report, the New York-based body said that children as young as 11 worked on some Israeli settlement farms in the occupied West Bank under dangerous working conditions in violation of international standards.
“Israel’s settlements are profiting from rights abuses against Palestinian children,” Sarah Leah Whitson, who directs the Middle East and North Africa division of the group, said.
“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,” she said.
The children are working at low wages and in high temperatures to harvest, and pack agricultural produce, much of it for export, the report said.
The international pressure group urged all countries to end business relationships with the settlements, including imports of agricultural goods produced in these farms.
“The settlements are the source of daily abuses, including against children,” Whitson said. “Other countries and businesses should not benefit from or support them.”
International law views the West Bank and East Jerusalem as occupied Palestinian territories and deems any construction of Jewish settlements on the land to be illegal.
Last month, UN's Middle East special envoy Robert Serry said that Israel's ongoing illegal settlement activities in these lands might have killed the possibility of reaching the UN-proposed two-state solution, which envisages the creation of an independent Palestinian state within pre-1967 borders, alongside Israel.
Israel's restrictions on Palestinians' access to farmland and water in the West Bank cost the Palestinian economy more than $700 million each year, according to the World Bank.
The Human Rights Watch report, which features interviews with 38 children who work on settlement farms, said the children were carrying heavy loads, exposed to hazardous pesticides, and in some cases have to pay themselves for medical treatment for work-related injuries and illnesses.
Nearly all of the children interviewed said they felt they had no alternative but to find work on settlement farms to help support their families.
It said the children suffered nausea and dizziness, and some passed out while working in summer temperatures that frequently exceeded 40 degrees Celsius outdoors, and were even higher inside the greenhouses in which many children worked.
"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," the rights group said.
"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," it added.
