A new report from the UN calls sex with girls under the age of 15 - "marriage" - at least if you are a Palestinian. In the rest of the world, the phenomenon would be called rape or sexual slavery. Though hidden in UN jargon, the report from the UN's children's agency, UNICEF, shockingly reveals: "2% of all Palestinian women aged 15 to 49 years married before the age of 15." One-quarter of Palestinian girls "marry" before 18.
The UNICEF report on "Palestinian children and women in Jordan, Lebanon, the Syrian Arab Republic and the State of Palestine," was produced to justify how the agency plans to spend 80 million dollars on Palestinians over the next three years. The driving premise of their planning is that "occupation" is the root cause of the problems of Palestinian children and women. In UNICEF's alternative universe, successive attempts by Arabs to eradicate a Jewish state over seven decades are morally neutral "conflict cycles."
UNICEF's effort to place the blame for Palestinian behavior on everyone but Palestinians, results in other shocking conclusions. According to the report, having sex with children is some kind of understandable "coping" mechanism. In UNICEF's words: "Child labour and child marriage are increasingly used as coping mechanisms, especially in countries affected by the Syrian conflict."
The UNICEF report also reveals that Palestinians routinely beat their children. It says: "In the community, schools and households, violent disciplinary practices prevail. In the State of Palestine, 70 per cent of students are exposed to violence at school. A staggering 92 per cent of children aged 1 to 14 years experienced violent disciplining at home in the month prior to a 2014 survey and 27.4 per cent of males were exposed to severe physical punishment, compared with 18.9 per cent of females."
In fact, Palestinians beat their children all over the place, even when not living in what the UN calls "the State of Palestine:" The report says: "In Lebanon, violent disciplinary practices were reported by 82.3 per cent of Palestinian refugee boys and 81 per cent of girls. In Jordan, 66 per cent of children aged 2 to 14 years were subjected to at least one form of physical punishment by adult household members in 2012. In the Syrian Arab Republic, 88 per cent were subjected to psychological and/or physical punishment in 2016."
Sadly, if UNICEF is incapable of comprehending the source of these children's pain, throwing more money at the agency won't make it go away.