Monday, 12 October 2009
With the three-month moratorium on the deportation of the children of illegal migrants coming to an end on November 1, human rights groups are gearing up for another round of "Save the children" campaigns.
In August, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, facing strong public resistance, announced he would hold off the deportation of children who were born in Israel to foreign workers. In the meantime, the "Oz Forum," made up of the ministers of Interior, Justice and Finance, was supposed to meet and discuss possible permanent solutions.
In the two and a half months since the announcement, little has been revealed of the forum's activities. While Interior Minister Eli Yishai's spokesman told The Jerusalem Post that he knew of four meetings, human rights groups said they knew of only one, with an additional meeting scheduled for Monday.
"We are really disappointed. We thought the issue would be raised in the government's social economic committee, but as far as we know it was never discussed. Netanyahu placed the issue in the hands of the Oz Forum, but we don't know of any motions that have been passed," said Rotem Ilan, a spokeswoman for Israeli Children.
Ilan said that Israeli Children is currently operating on several levels to have the deportation permanently canceled, from letter writing campaigns to large public events.
"Our next big project is a photo exhibit at the Contemporary by Golconda gallery in Tel Aviv. The exhibit will feature photos of the children who stand to be deported along with an 'identification card' for each child that will inform viewers of their name, their hobbies, their dreams and their fears.
"The IDs symbolize the real Israeli ID cards they so long for," Ilan said.
The exhibit opening will feature speeches by Minority Affairs Minister Avishay Braverman (Labor) and MK Nitzan Horovitz (Meretz) and a performance by the children themselves.
Other groups are also gearing up for their campaigns. Mesila, a non-profit organization that was established by the Tel Aviv Municipality in 1999, is holding a tribute evening on Thursday in Tel Aviv, featuring a performance by indie-folk musician Alma Zohar, a film screening of Amikam Goldman's Long Distance Call, a poetry reading by Ronny Someck and a photo exhibit by Amos Halfon that depicts the story of a foreign worker from the Philippines and her six-year-old son.
The Migrant Workers Hotline, one of the groups that spearheaded this summer's campaign, said they were currently focusing on lobbying activities, but would likely change tactics and resume public activities if they found that the deportation decision was not reversed.
The families in question are for the most part people who came into the country with legal paperwork, and subsequently lost their status as a result of having children. According to Israeli immigration rules, a woman who has a child here is only allowed to stay in the country until the end of her maternity leave. After that, she must leave with her child.
In 2006, the government tried to regulate the status of some of the foreign workers' children. The Interior Ministry then issued permanent resident status to 900 children who were born in Israel and were over the age of four years and nine months. Many of the children listed for deportation now were too young to be included in the previous arrangement.
