Mr. Gil Mendelzis, CEO of Traiana company with Professors Rachel Lev-Wiesel and Zvi Eisikovits initiated the first epidemiological survey on violence towards children in youth in Israel. The generous fund given by Traiana company enabled the Center for the Study of Society at the University of Haifa, to conduct a large scale, multi-method study on the incidence, prevalence and experience of various forms of child abuse, including physical, emotional, sexual abuse and neglect. It also examined profiles of abused children, as well as gaps in reporting and reasons for failing to report.
The objectives were as follows:
• To estimate the extent of children and adolescents victimization in Israel.
• To examine the gap between exposure, reported incidence of victimization in the survey vs. the formal statistics.
• To examine the factors that encourage and /or inhibit disclosure.
• To enhance the subjective understanding of violence against children based on the meaning attributed to it by children and youth, and child abuse professionals (qualitative data).
• To develop a database that will be available to the government, public officials, policy makers, professionals.
The study was conducted on a national representative sample of 10,000 children aged 11-16 from the Jewish and Arab secular sectors. The aim of the study included the need to develop a national database which can serve as a basis for developing empirically based interventions and policy. With the data collected and basic statistical and qualitative analysis underway, we could compile a primary report which can serve as a basis for thinking about intervention, as well as legal and policy change and recommendations to the decision-making ministries and social and educational agencies.

The full report (Hebrew)