Human Rights and Democracy Media Center- SHAMS emphasizes that achieving a community based on democracy, good governance, social justice, equality, citizenship, social contract based on freedoms/ rights, and a legalized political regime with wide community support, cannot be but through empowering youth groups and enabling them to participate in the decision- making and policy- designing processes. Not only because the policies and decisions affect youth, as they are the majority of the community, but also to empower youth to be leaders and eliminate the perception that youth lack experience. SHAMS Center believes that youth should be enabled to practice leadership and highlight their role as reliable qualified leaders. SHAMS Center calls upon eliminating underestimating youth capacity, before time is over. The position of the organization is expressed in a statement released in recognition of Youth International Day (August 12th)), which was identified by the United Nations in its resolution number 54/120
SHAMS Center reminds the Palestinian Government with its commitments in front of the international community where these commitments are obligatory as Palestine is recognized as a State Member in the UN and so, all the resolutions of the United Nations should be valid to Palestine. The International Community calls upon empowering youth in the various occasions including Youth Work Program, which was active till the year 2000 and beyond. The given program represents a clear reference document in empowering youth, especially priority 10 which highlights the full and active participation of youth in the community life and decision- making”. Additionally, the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 58/133 of the year 2003, the joint statement of the UN agencies/ 2011, and the Security Council Resolution 2250 encouraged empowering youth and called upon states parties to create mechanism and tools to empower youth and involve them in achieving peace and ending conflicts. Likewise, the Resolution number 2419/ 2018 emphasized the necessity to implement the UNSCR 2250 and the General Assembly declared August 12 to be an annual Youth International Day
Youth (males and females) are included clearly in the SDGs 2030 assuming that youth are those who are supposed to realize these goals that are based on the notion of “no one should be left behind”. On the national level, The National Policy Agenda 2017- 2022 emphasized youth’s participation through priority number seven that focuses on social justice, rule of law, and national policy where this priority was titled: “Our Youth, Our Future”. The mentioned priority aims at empowering youth and preparing them for active participation in the public life and building the Palestinian state. Additionally, the mentioned priority focuses on providing better opportunities for youth to realize prosper future and so did the national policies and strategies to reach a case of gender equality.
SHAMS Center calls upon the international community to fulfill its legal and moral responsibilities regarding ending the Israeli violations against Palestinian youth. The Israeli occupation is targeting Palestinian youth through killing, arresting, pursuing, and restricting their freedom of mobility. Additionally, youth from Gaza Strip are under restricted Israeli siege and the occupation tends to demolish the houses of Palestinian youth’s families as well as banning youth from pursuing their education. The Occupation forces keep arresting Palestinian youth and so, depriving them from their right to education as well as closing and attacking the academic institutions. Palestinian youth are subject to shooting by the Israeli soldiers as well as various forms of attacks. Additionally, the Israeli military checkpoints usually block youth from moving from a place to another.
Furthermore, the Israeli authorities commit other violations where it imposes full control on the areas classified as (c) in the West Bank where the natural resources of Palestinians are under the control of the occupation including land and water resources. Palestinians are denied access to their natural resources, which results to economic deterioration and increase in the percentages of poverty and unemployment, especially among youth. Due to confiscating the natural resources of Palestinians, it was not possible to achieve sustainable development or face the challenges that the community encounters. Facing the challenges that youth are encountered to, is through utilizing the natural resources of their homeland, but the occupation is confiscating these resources.
SHAMS Center warns from the lower level of youth’s involvement in the public life where in the latest second round of local governance elections that took place in the West Bank on 26/3/2022, a low percentage of participation was recorded. One of the reasons behind this low participation is attributed to youth’s involvement in their individual issues and the general case of frustration. Other reasons are related to the unfair distribution of opportunities as well as the political division between the West Bank and Gaza Strip that resulted in blocking the presidential and parliament elections where those below the age of 32 years old, had never participated in any presidential or parliament elections. The only elections that youth participated in were the local governance elections though they were not regular and were dominated by patriarchal mentality that tends to exclude both women and youth.
According to the reports of the PCBS, the percentage of youth who occupy high positions and legislating positions is only 0.9% though youth (aging 19- 28) represent 23% of the total population, which indicates a wide gap between demography and actual representation of youth. Feeling marginalized and ignored are among the reasons behind the recession of the feeling citizens among both males and females. Youth do not feel belonging to the community and feel alienation with clear tendency among them to immigrate abroad. Such situation leads to increase in the level of violence and the spread of negative phenomenon with the community, especially among youth.
SHAMS Center calls for the following:
- The government should take immediate serious steps to strengthen youth’s participation in the public life and the decision- making process. Achieving that could be through amending the applied laws to open the doors for youth to participate in the public life alongside with proposing plans and strategies to enhance youth’s participation in the community life. There is a need to propose projects and interventions that increase youth’s involvement in the public sphere.
- The political parties should amend their bylaws to enable youth to participate in the leadership circles of these organizations
- Amend the local governance electoral law (10/2005) and the electoral system and the Presidential Decree (1/ 2007) regarding the public elections as well as the 2021 amendments of the given decree.
- Conduct analytical study (including questionnaires and polling) within the various local governance bodies that witnessed low participation to figure out the reasons why youth abstain from participation.
- Work with the Central Elections Commission and the CSOs specialized in elections to conduct permanent raising awareness campaigns to mobilize youth to participate in the public issues as well as participating in the various elections.
- Propose a mechanism to minimize acclamation in the local governance bodies where one list runs to elections and make it a must that such list should get minimum amount of votes to be legal; or to conduct referendum about the given list as well as discussing the negative impacts of acclamation on the social, cultural, and political levels as well as discussing the democracy of such tendency.
- Amend the bylaws of the student movement to ensure active participation of female students within student blocks. Additionally, amend the bylaws of the student councils to ensure proportional representation of female students.
- Allow independent female students to form blocks to run for student councils elections.
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