Internal memo directs Population and Immigration Authority not to include fathers’ information in children’s birth certificates.
The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), the Hotline for Migrant Workers, and Physicians for Human Rights have petitioned the High Court of Justice, seeking an order to require the Interior Ministry to issue birth certificates that include the names of both parents and the family name chosen by the parents for children who are born in Israel without legal residency status.
The petition was filed on behalf of the organizations as well as a family of asylum seekers from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) – a fourteen month-old Israeli-born baby and her parents. The child’s parents are allowed to stay in Israel under the group protection granted to citizens of the DRC, and were even given work permits in Israel. After their daughter was born, the parents tried to get a birth certificate from the Interior Ministry. The ministry issued a certificate that did not name the father and refused the parents’ request to give the child her father’s last name, forcing the child to take her mother’s last name instead.
The petition, filed by Attorney Oded Feller, Director of the Citizenship and Residency Program at ACRI, notes that contrary to declarations provided by the Interior Ministry to the Court, and in contravention of the ministry’s own regulations, the ministry has been refusing to list fathers’ names on the birth certificates of status-less children (mostly children of asylum seekers and migrant workers) for some two years, and refusing to give children their fathers’ last names, against the wishes of parents. Instead, the ministry insists on giving children their mothers’ last names. In situations where the parents are present in Israel without a permit, the ministry also requires the parents, as a condition for the issuance of a birth certificate, to sign a form in which they declare they are “present illegally” in Israel.
The petition notes that in a recent High Court of Justice hearing on a petition filed by ACRI, the Interior Ministry announced that both parents would be listed on all birth records created in hospitals, and the Court gave this commitment the effect of a ruling. In the context of the same proceedings, the ministry also announced that it would give status-less children certifications of birth substantially similar to Israeli birth certificates, based on the details in the hospital birth records. These practices are even published on the Population and Immigration Authority’s website, where it says explicitly that parents shall not be required to declare that they are “illegally present” in Israel as a precondition for the issuance of a birth certificate.
For several years the Interior Ministry acted in accordance with the papers submitted to the Court and its own regulations. But nevertheless, in 2011, the Director of the Population and Immigration Authority’s Registry and Status Department, Mr. Amos Arbel, distributed an internal memo to the Authority’s offices directing them not to register the fathers’ information, and to condition the issuance of the certificate on the signature of the “illegal presence” form.
In the petition, the rights organizations explain that formal birth records including familial ties are among the fundamental rights of every child, anchored in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Israel is a party to, and which applies equally to all children present within a country’s territory, without reference to the immigration status of the children or their parents. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child stresses the vital importance of registration and organized documentation of children: the certificate is an official recognition by the State of the child’s existence; it allows the State to plan how to care for children; and it protects children, in part by monitoring their parents.
Attorney Oded Feller: “The State has an obligation to protect the identities of all the children in Israel equally. It is also obligated to grant all children, without discrimination, birth certificates. The Interior Ministry is not authorized to erase elements of a child’s identity. It is not entitled to cancel the parenthood of fathers who are not Israeli, nor is it authorized to take away the names given to children by their parents. Sadly, time after time, papers must be filed with the High Court of Justice so that it can remind the Interior Ministry of basic rules concerning what is allowed and what is not, and that foreigners too are endowed with human rights.”
To read the petition (in Hebrew), click here.
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