Ramallah, February 7th 2019 – Minor’s rights in the Palestinian Juvenile Justice System are at the core of the Italian Cooperation intervention in Palestine, through development projects implemented by the Palestinian General Attorney’s Office and in partnership with the Ministries of Education, Social Development and Local Government. An analytical and comparative study has been drafted within the framework of the project Karama, funded by AICS, and was launched by a group of stakeholders this morning in Ramallah, among which the three Palestinian Ministries and two Italian experts from the Juvenile Department at the Italian Ministry of Justice, Vincenzo Starita and Donatella Caponetti, already involved in the project activities to study the judicial-social context and the possible introduction of the probation measure in Palestine.
The Italian cooperation with the Palestinian Public Prosecution provided technical assistance to Juvenile Justice sector officials, protection activities for the best interest of the minors in conflict with the Law and specific capacity building to improve the skills of the juvenile’s justice department of the Public Prosecution. Since the introduction of the International Convention on the rights of the child in 2014, that is currently celebrating 30 years, relevant steps forward have been done in Palestine for a real dissemination of minor’s human rights, with the support of the Italian Cooperation.
The Director of AICS Jerusalem Cristina Natoli highlighted that the activities carried out within Karama project played a key-role in the elaboration of the study, “in order to reduce the gaps between the regulations and their application, with the aim of enhancing the management of the juvenile justice and proposing suggestions to the Law n. 4/2016, which defines the proceedings in the Palestinian Territories.”
Among the participants to the study launch: Representatives of Partners and UN Development Agencies, officials from the Palestinian Ministries involved in the Juvenile Justice sector and Italian, international and Palestinian Civil Society Organizations. A debate occurred during the second part of the conference, stressing the importance and the necessity of a real cooperation between the stakeholders of the Juvenile Justice sector in Palestine.
