6 December 2021

For Immediate Release


Major Charity in Dirty Money Scandal

CHILDREN’s charity the NSPCC insists on accepting money from a company which has been repeatedly targeted for its human rights violations.

Graphic footage of JCB bulldozers demolishing Palestinian property has been projected onto a wall next to the NSPCC’s London office.

One shot shows a baby in her cot in the open air surrounded by the remains of her home along with the message directed at the NSPCC to sever its ties with JCB despite the £5 million its received.

The bulldozers are routinely used to destroy homes, water infrastructure and animal shelters. Olive groves are also ripped up. They are also used to build illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian land – both of which are war crimes.

The UK chapter of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions commissioned a specialist film unit to expose the use of JCB bulldozers in the devastation of Palestinian lives and livelihoods. Another projection next to a busy road in Battersea focused on JCB's complicity in human rights violations.

Executive committee member Sharen Green said ICAHD UK had been working with a coalition of NGOs for two years which has repeatedly asked the NSPCC to stop taking cash from JCB, a company that puts profits ahead of obligations under international humanitarian law.

“It beggars belief that a charity devoted to the welfare of children is willing to accept money from a company that plunges children elsewhere in the world into poverty and homelessness,” she said.

“These children are traumatised but the NSPCC has not answered our pleas to sever its relationship with this toxic company.”

Amnesty International is only the latest body to highlight JCB’s complicity in Israeli war crimes.

The National Contact Point which administers OECD rules in the UK found against JCB when Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights reported the company.

And in February 2020, the UN identified JCB as one of only three UK companies profiting from Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian land.

View a recording of this projection here.

 

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Notes to editors:

Ms Green can be contacted at media@icahduk.org or on ++44 0) 1202 693837 and ++44 (0) 7816 96234