Wednesday, May 09, 2007

"Violence in Israel has manifested itself into a disturbing and growing new trend, children who strike their parents. When Y.G. was 10 years old, his father was jailed for beating his wife. When Y.G. was 11 he hit his mother so hard she had to be hospitalized. He was removed from his home in the north and taken to an emergency center run by the Social Welfare Ministry, from which he was transferred to another institution for treatment. Until a few years ago, social workers were unfamiliar with children like Y.G., but the phenomenon of children being violent toward their parents is now growing. In 2005, 26 such children were removed from their homes, according to said Social Welfare Ministry official Hanna Slotzky. In 2006, the number jumped to 47, with some of the children as young as nine or ten."