A meeting held with police officers

The need to go to schools, particularly preparatory and secondary schools, to guide and educate pupils was one of the recommendations produced by a group from the security and police services at a meeting held at the Palestinian Center for Democracy and Conflict Resolution on Wednesday 1/6.
The security officers stressed the need to spread awareness and to teach sound sexual education as a core part of the curriculum at the advanced educational stages, in addition to activating the role of the Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs in counselling people, especially as it meets them every week through the Friday sermon and the religious circles it holds.
Those present also called for the need to set up a main centre specialising in these cases, bringing together specialists, educators, doctors and lawyers, in coordination with the judges and the government.
For their part, those present added that there are many factors that help and incite them to commit these acts, such as television, the internet, bad company and distance from religion. Here comes the role of parents in watching over and raising their children so that they do not commit these acts.

The police officers also confirmed that most cases of harassment of children come from the circle close to the child, such as family, friends, the owner of the neighbouring grocery shop and the family's driver, and that the police cannot uncover these cases or bring them to judgment without the wish of the guardian of the child victim, who rarely claims his child's right and rarely seeks the trial of the perpetrator before the law, preferring instead to drop the case and keep silent for fear of gossip and of the matter spreading among the community around him.
At the end of the meeting, the police officers expressed their readiness to help the project team with any problem they face, or to organise meetings on this subject with police officers.