Child Registration in
East Jerusalem - Issue Unresolved
Marriages between Palestinian
women, residents of East Jerusalem, and men from the surrounding West Bank
are frequent. Besides problems with obtaining Jerusalem residency rights
for the husband, these couples also face difficulties in registering their
children as residents of the city, even if they are born in a Jerusalem
hospital.
According to Israeli law,
hospitals are required to ask the parents of a new-born child to sign a
“Announcement of Birth”. This form exists in two versions: one version
includes a printed serial number which is the child’s future ID number
(for children to be registered as Jerusalem residents); the other does
not have a printed serial number (for children to be registered at a West
Bank civil administration or elsewhere). Forms with identification numbers
are transferred by the hospitals to the Interior Ministry, where the parents
have to register the child within 14 days. Forms without identification
numbers are handed to the parents, who are requested to register their
child at their West Bank civil administration within 10 days.
In 1982, East Jerusalem
hospitals received new instructions from the Jerusalem Interior Ministry,
according to which data concerning children born to non-Jerusalem resident
fathers must be filled in the form WITHOUT identification numbers, even
if the child’s mother is an East Jerusalem resident. In February 1993,
local human rights organizations initiated a meeting with the Israeli Interior
Ministry in order to solve the problem of Palestinian children of Jerusalem
mothers who, due to the new regulations, were registered as West Bank residents
against the will of their parents, or not registered at all. The Ministry
officials at this meeting promised to change their interpretation of the
Law of Entry to Israel so as to facilitate registration by mothers (if
they can document “center of life” in Jerusalem and show a written consent
by the child’s father), to issue new instructions to the Ministry clerks,
and to inform the hospitals about the new procedures.
Unfortunately, human rights
organizations which have monitored the situation since then discovered
that the problem remained. Following the February 1993 meeting, the Interior
Ministry actually introduced a new and special form asking parents for
details regarding “center of life in Jerusalem”. However, this form is
available only at the East Jerusalem Interior Ministry (and at some lawyers’
offices). East Jerusalem hospitals have never been informed about the existence
of the new form and about the new policy, which offers a new option to
East Jerusalem mothers. Therefore, the hospitals continue to handle registration
procedures according to the old instructions received in 1982. Thus, many
Palestinian mothers never arrive at the Interior Ministry, because they
do not know that they have a chance of registering their child in Jerusalem.
Others do arrive, but the clerk on duty does not inform them about the
existence of the new form and simply tells them to register their child
in the West Bank. Many mothers also choose not to try to register the child
in Jerusalem, because, the procedure is lengthy and complicated, and if
they fail, they will be fined, because they will have missed the 10-day
registration period defined by Israeli military regulations in the West
Bank.
The AIC’s Project for Palestinian
Residency & Refugee Rights in cooperation with the Quakers Legal Aid
Service have approached the Interior Ministry demanding:
- TRANSPARENCY of procedures
- East Jerusalem hospitals must be informed of the new policy and be instructed
accordingly;
- FAIRNESS of procedures
- East Jerusalem mothers whose application for registration of their child
in Jerusalem is rejected, must be permitted to register the child in the
West Bank without having to pay a fine. |