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.

 
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issue no. 11