Jehan Helou is a Palestinian author and intellectual. She served as the general director of the Tamer Institute for Community Education and she was a member and one of the founders of the Palestinian Child Rights Coalition (2000-2006)
Currently, Helou is the President and founder of the Palestinian National Section of The International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY), whose main aim is to ‘Protect and Uphold the Rights of the Child’.
It is in her capacity as IBBY President that Helou wrote a letter to the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, on behalf of all Palestinian children.
Excellency, António Guterres United Nations Secretary-General
I write to you on behalf of the Palestinian children in light of your most recent report on Children and Armed Conflict, in which Israel was regrettably not added to the “list of shame”, despite its ongoing violations against Palestinian children that warrant to be added to the list. This is a letter of Hope to ask where is the United Nations from the goal “A World Fit for Children”? Why did the Secretary-General decide to drop Israel from the “List of Shame”?
Many voices from around the world criticized the omission of Israel from the list. As reflected by Human Rights Watch, Israel’s continued omission from the list of shame does a grave disservice to Palestinian children. The Secretary General’s report found Israeli forces responsible for 975 child casualties and 110 attacks on schools and hospitals in 2022…
Those figures contained in the Secretary-General Report on Children and Armed Conflict for 2022, and relevant reports by UN agencies are shocking figures. Facts about Palestinian children killed, tortured, and denied basic human rights constitute solid proof that Israel should be the first to be included in the “List of Shame”.
As these figures get worse every year, we ask, why this exclusion? Why the UNSG has never included Israel in the “List of Shame”?
Twenty years ago, in 2002, the United Nations General Assembly concluded its Special Session on Children by adopting its final outcome document – “A World Fit for Children”. I participated in this special session as part of the Palestinian Child Rights Coalition delegation, we came from Palestine to the UN in New York right after the destruction of the Jenin refugee camp by Israel, and after ferocious aggressions and incursions in Ramallah and other cities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. We were shocked to learn that Israel, the occupying Power, was not included in the “List of Shame” of parties to armed conflict who commit grave violations against children.