Dokument #1048545
IRB – Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (Autor)
The following interview was conducted with
the Director of the Centre for Research, Policy and Public
Education Division of the National Council for the Child. The
interview was held on 24 April 1995 in Jerusalem.
The National Council for the Child (NCC) is
a non-governmental organization founded in 1975. The NCC deals with
all the issues that concern children's rights and well-being in
Israel. The NCC is mainly active in the following projects:
1) The Centre for the Child and the
Law;
2) The Research and Public Education
Centre;
3) The Ombudsman for Children and
Youth.(1)
The Ombudsman for Children and Youth deals
with any violations of children's rights in Israel. It is comprised
of four sections: native-born Israeli children, Arab-Israeli
children, Ethiopian immigrant children and former Soviet immigrant
children. The Ombudsman receives around 5,000 complaints from
children annually.
Clients
The NCC provides services to children in
need of assistance, whether Jewish, non-Jewish, Arab, Christian or
foreigner. The NCC does not require to see a person's Teudat Zehut
before providing services. The Teudat Zehut will be required only
when administrative procedures by the government are necessary.
The NCC was involved with the case of a
non-citizen Christian child from abroad who came to Israel with
his/her family to meet a specialist at Hadassah Hospital. As a
non-citizen, the child was not covered by Israeli Health Insurance.
The parents had no money to cover the US $20,000 expense for the
operation. The NCC, in collaboration with Christian organizations,
raised funds to pay the medical costs.
The NCC provides assistance to immigrant
children from the former Soviet Union who experience problems with
their integration into the country. The NCC does not replace the
services immigrant children receive, rather it makes sure that the
institutions fulfil their obligations with regard to the rights of
the children.
In 1994, the NCC handled approximately 1500
cases of Soviet immigrant children. This represents around 35 per
cent of the NCC caseload. The total Soviet immigrant population
represents 10 per cent of the Israeli population. This high rate of
Soviet immigrant children is due to integration problems.
The complaints from immigrant children from
the former Soviet Union cover a wide range of issues such as
educational frameworks, school enrolment, child labour, problems
related to divorced families, and problems of status for children
born of parents one of whom was non-Jewish.
Cases of children born of non-Jewish
parents are not numerous. Most of them involve cases where only one
spouse (usually a woman) immigrated to Israel without the other
spouse. If the spouse who came to Israel is Jewish, arrangements
for the status of the children can be made. When the spouse who
comes to Israel with the children is non-Jewish, and has come
without the permission of the Jewish spouse, problems of status
occur. Children from these families cannot obtain Israeli
citizenship without the written permission of the Jewish spouse.
Often, these single parents are divorced and contacts between the
spouses have been severed for a long time. It is very difficult to
find the other spouse in the former Soviet Union to obtain the
written permission. Without Israeli citizenship status the children
are not entitled to services in Israel such as health insurance,
school enrolment, etc.
There are other cases of families (whether
Jewish or mixed Jewish/non-Jewish couples) who come to Israel as
tourists and remain in the country after their tourist visa has
expired. With their visa expiration the family becomes illegal
residents. As such the children cannot have access to services. The
NCC takes up these cases with the Ministry of the Interior and
tries to obtain either citizenship or permanent resident status in
Israel. They are usually successful in pursuing this avenue.
Permanent resident status provides all the rights of citizenship
except for voting and, therefore, allows the children to receive
appropriate care from the government institutions.
Cases the NCC cannot resolve are those of
non-Jewish families where neither of the parents is Jewish, who
come to Israel as tourists and remain in the country after their
visa expires. In Israel there are almost no cases of expulsion. If
they claim some remote connection to Jewish identity, they are
allowed to remain in the country. However, their status often
remains problematic. This is the NCC's main complaint with the
government if it lets people in, it should give them proper status.
If the government does not want to let them in, it should stop them
before they are inside the country. There are too many agencies
handling immigration cases of people from the former Soviet Union
who let people with very remote connections to Judaism come to
Israel.
Under Israeli law, people are obligated to
report cases of child abuse or suspicion of child abuse. An
ordinary person who fails to report such cases can be sentenced up
to three months in jail; a professional for up to six months. This
law was passed five years ago.(2)
The Israeli Police are obliged to respond
to all calls for assistance. According to the source's assessment,
a police officer who refuses to provide services to a person or a
child on the basis that the request is being made by a non-Jew,
would be reflective of the police officer's behaviour rather than
the entire police. The source is not aware of cases where police
officers refused to provide services to children or their parents
on such a basis.
Like other police forces around the world,
the Israeli police do not enjoy being criticized. However, when the
NCC has intervened, the Israeli police have performed their
duty.
Advertisement
The NCC advertises its services in the
Russian press and publishes booklets in Russian. Booklets produced
for immigrants in the professions are written in Hebrew only
because it is very unlikely that a professional would not speak
Hebrew. Booklets produced for immigrants in general would be
written in Russian. The NCC also publishes a poster in Hebrew,
Russian and Arabic on the issue of child abuse and the obligation
to report instances of child abuse. 20,000 copies of this poster
were distributed everywhere in the country. The NCC publicity
campaign seems to be effective since the number of complaints is
growing.
Integration of Immigrant Children
According to Asher's assessment, although
it is not perfect, the integration of Soviet immigrant children
into Israeli society is improving. The indicators show that the
rate of poverty among Soviet immigrant children has dropped from 60
to 30 per cent. After three years of data showing a higher
percentage than that of native Israeli youth, the percentage rate
of Soviet immigrant juvenile offenders has decreased to the rate of
native Israeli youth. The rate of success in pre-school exams is
higher among Soviet immigrant pupils than for native Israeli
children.
The main problems experienced by Soviet
immigrant children are social and economic. Socially, new Soviet
immigrants are numerous enough to live in neighbourhoods where they
speak Russians with their Russian neighbours. This situation delays
their integration into Israeli society. Economically, the challenge
is to obtain better employment and salary. Only time and
integration will provide long-term solutions to these problems.
Asher emphasized that although the
situation of Soviet immigrant children is improving, there are
still serious problems to be dealt with. Many people are not doing
their best to solve these problems. The NCC does not question the
law, the rules or the social norms in Israel. The NCC encounters
problems with the behaviour of specific individuals whether a
social worker, a police officer, a government official, etc.
NOTES
(1) For additional information on these
projects and on the National Council for the Child, please consult
the attached documents.
(2) A copy of this law is available upon
request to the DIRB in Ottawa. The text is in Hebrew.
Information on the assistance available to immigrant children [ISR21650.E] (Anfragebeantwortung, Französisch)