Adah
is the daughter of Jewish refugees. Since 1967 she
has opposed the Israeli occupation. Some years ago
she and her husband decided to go and live in the
West Bank to see how they could contribute more
directly.
They
went in 2002 when Adah volunteered with Defence
for Children International (Palestine Section) and
co-wrote Stolen Youth - on Palestinian child
prisoners. Adah now divides her time between the
UK and the West Bank. She spends much of her time
in the West Bank doing research, writing and working
with children's NGOs.
Adah
Kay, co-author of Stolen Youth - The politics
of Israel's Detention of Palestinian Children -
will speak about Palestinian children including
child prisoners and the effects of the Israeli occupation
of Palestine on them.
Stolen
Youth is the first book to explore Israel's
incarceration of Palestinian children. Based on
first-hand information from international human
rights groups and NGO workers in the West Bank and
Gaza Strip, it also features interviews with children
who have been imprisoned. The result is a disturbing
and often shocking account of the abuses that are
being carried out by Israel, and that have been
widely documented by human rights groups such as
Amnesty International, but have never been addressed
by the international community.
The
book presents a critical analysis of the international
legal framework and the UN system, arguing that
a major failure of these institutions is their appeal
to neutrality while ignoring the reality of power.
The book offers an explanation for these failures
by locating the issue of Palestinian child prisoners
within the framework of the Israeli overall system
of control as a long-term political strategy.
Adah
trained as a social anthropologist and urban planner.
She is currently Visiting Professor in the Centre
for Charity Effectiveness, City University London.
Between 1978-86 she was Senior Research Fellow and
co Director of the Housing Research Group at the
City University and then for ten years was Chief
Executive of Family Service Units, a national UK
NGO that works with families and children.
