Israeli activists this week launched the #hardestathome campaign to pressure the government to reopen all centers for youth at risk, despite the coronavirus pandemic.
The move came just days after the Social Welfare and Social Services Ministry loosened restrictions on government-led at-risk youth services and on NGOs that provide such services under government contract.
The activists called the ministry’s steps insufficient, as the relaxed measures apply only to a small number of service providers.
The government, however, pushed back against the accusation that it was not doing enough to help children and young adults who were at risk of physical, emotional and sexual abuse at home.
Most residential centers and boarding schools have remained open, including the Atnachta shelter for at-risk youth in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv’s Beit Dror, which serves LGBT youth. But advocates said that most day facilities remained shuttered or open only on a very limited scale.
These centers include NGOs such as IGY-Israel Gay Youth, which says the decision to keep the facilities closed is unacceptable.
“We are following the government’s instructions. As of now, all of our activity is online and we’re not yet allowed to carry out physical activities,” the center said.
Others working in the field agree.
“We’re calling on the government to reactivate all the centers for youth at risk. We think it’s irresponsible that for the last five weeks, the Social Welfare Ministry has not addressed this issue,” says Ashira Yahav, a human rights activist who works at a center promoting youth welfare.
“We want them to draft instructions along with the Health Ministry that enable the centers to reopen safely, and to order them to open immediately,” she says.
Various Israeli celebrities, including Betoolot actress Maggie Azarzar and award-winning songstress Miri Mesika, have embraced the activists’ cause. Organizers hope this will increase awareness of the issue.
“Public attention is drawn away from the topic of troubled youth even in normal times,” says activist Maya Regev.
“Underage teenagers from weak parts of society don’t have a voice or publicists or a lot of power in the media, so you can just look away. I watch the news every day, and even with 24/7 news coverage on the coronavirus, they don’t bring this subject up – and it’s an emergency,” Regev says.
“I want social media to bring awareness to the subject,” she says, “because even though everyone is in a problematic situation, there are families that are suffering much more [than others] from this pandemic.”
Using the hashtag #hardestathome, the celebrities are sharing what they have found most difficult about their experience under quarantine. At-risk youth are encouraged to do the same and discuss the much greater challenges they face while stuck at home.
According to Regev, it will also allow many people to see “the problems of privilege that we have [in contrast to troubled youth] – for example, not seeing relatives or doing yoga classes."
Yahav said that there had already been problems as a result of the lockdown, which she feared would only worsen.
“We are already seeing some of the consequences,” she says. “There has been a 750% increase in domestic violence complaints. There are reports by some centers that help victims of sexual assault that there has been as much as a 41% increase in complaints of attacks in the home.”
Yahav says the closures of the centers had brought to a halt the progress made by young people, many of whom come from homes that led them to become at-risk in the first place.
Many cases are serious but not enough for welfare services to remove the youngsters from parental custody. Such decisions, Yahav says, could increase the risk to public health from coronavirus.
“If kids are not safe in their home, [if they are] suffering or in distress, they will not stay home. They will go out to meet friends in the neighborhood,” she says.
Many of these youngsters come from poor families and depend on the centers for help with the most essential aspects of life.
“Many of these centers also provide basic things, like meals,” Yahav says.
“Social services referred them to these centers so they would spend less time at home and get more of the basics for survival, which they might not otherwise get.”
Regev says money problems caused by the coronavirus outbreak could push people to return to bad home situations.
“Sometimes, due to financial reasons, sexual assault victims have to go back to homes where the perpetrators live,” she says.
Nediva Ferziger, one of the #stayathome activists, says that most social workers not affiliated with the ministry were on unpaid leave, leaving many children without counselors to talk to or to check up on them.
The government rejects the criticism.
“More than 95% of all services to youth at-risk given by ministry are open, and they were open during the entire [lockdown period],” says Gil Horev, a spokesperson for the Social Welfare Ministry.
“The 5% that are not open are closed in line with the instructions of the Health Ministry. For example, group activities,” he says.
“All our hostels for youth at risk are open; all the boarding schools are open and social workers are working…. We have special cars that drive to neighborhoods that look for at-risk young people. They are operating. They are doing this in small groups."
Much is up to the Health Ministry, Horev says, and its limits “on what can or cannot be done; on how many people can gather together; where they can be; how much distance they should keep from each other – and we are translating this to our services…. But it’s all coordinated with the Health Ministry. We don’t make decisions [on our own].”
A source within the Health Ministry says: “Our plans are subject to the spread of the disease and the cabinet’s decisions as to what level of risk is acceptable. We can’t yet say when specific restrictions will be rolled back.”
To which Ferziger responded: “The centers were not all open for the past five weeks. A few places are running as they regularly do. Most places [that are open] are only allowed to run [activities] one-on-one or in very small groups. It’s the role of the Social Welfare Ministry to make sure that NGOs know if they can open, and ensure that they do so.”
For now, youth advocates are hoping the campaign will get enough signatures on a petition to persuade the government to open the rest of the centers, and to have the Knesset’s Special Committee on Welfare and Labor Affairs accept their request to hold a meeting to discuss the issue.
“We demand answers from the ministries. If we don’t get answers within the next week, [we will have a larger] response,” Yahav said.