Palestinian Children's Day 2018

The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) issued a press release on the occasion of the Palestinian Children's Day, on Thursday 05/04/2018


About half of the population is children
The number of children under the age of 18 is 2,115,370 children in the State of Palestine according to the final results of Population, Housing and Establishments Census 2017, of  which 1,083,720 males and 1,031,650 females. The percentage of children in Palestine is 45.3% of the population (43.4% in the West Bank and 48.0% in Gaza Strip).


About 11% of  the females in age group 20-24 years are married in childhood
According to the Population, Housing and Establishments Census  2017, 10.8% of  women aged 20-24 were married  under the age of 18 years (8.5% in the West Bank and 13.8% in the Gaza Strip).


More than one-fourth of the population are school students
The primary data for the scholastic year 2017/2018 showed that the number of school students in Palestine reached about 1.254 million students, of which 1.107 million were students in the basic stage (50.4% males versus 49.6% females), 147 thousand students in the secondary stage (43.7% males and 56.3% females).

While the number of children enrolled in kindergartens in the scholastic year 2016/2017 in Palestine reached about 146.8 thousand children (51.1% males and 48.9% females).

Drop-out rates among males are higher than females
In the 2015/2016 scholastic year, drop-out rate was 1.2% among males compared to 0.7% among females. At the secondary stage, this percentage was 1.3% among males and 1.1% among females.


Male children who engaged in Labor are higher than females
About 3.4% of the total number of children (paid/unpaid) in the age group (10-17 years) in 2017 was 4.6% in the West Bank and 1.7% in Gaza Strip (6.6% males 0.1% females).

The percentage of children enrolled in schools and engaged in labor reached 1.2% (1.6% in the West Bank and  0.7% in Gaza Strip). On gender level, it was 2.4% for males and 0.1% for females in 2017.

Congenital (genetic) causes are the most common cause of disability between children
According to the Population, Housing and Establishments Census 2017, 0.9% of the children have at least one form of disability (0.7% in the West Bank and 1.2% in Gaza Strip), 1.1% of male children compared to 0.8% for females.

As for the main cause of disability among children, congenital (genetic) cause ranked first by 45.5% (43.5% males and 48.3% females), followed by causes related to pregnancy and childbirth 23.3% (22.8% males and 24.1% females), then 21.1% for Pathological causes (22.2% males and 19.6% females).

25.3% of the children suffer from communication disability followed by mobility disability and use of hands 25.1%, then remembering and Concentration 19.7% and the lowest percentage goes for hearing disability by 13.2%  for the year 2017.


Detainees Children in Israeli prisons
According to the data released by the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs, 6,742  Palestinians were arrested by the Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 2017, among of which 1,467 children (under the age 18), constituting about 21.8% of the total number of detainees.  About 350 of them are still in detention deprived of their childhood, including continuing their studies, as well as being subjected to abuse during detention.

 Martyr children
According to the records of the Defense for Children International Palestine (DCIP), 15 children were martyred in 2017, including 1 child in the age group (9-12 years), 3 children in the age group                 (13-15 years), and 11 children in the age group (16-17 years).  DCIP's records also showed that 6 children were  martyred  by Israelis during January and February of 2018.