Child behind bars (illustration)
Photo: Joe Kot
Girl to live in detention center with mother facing deportation
Four-year-old child's Filipino mother scheduled for deportation, Israeli father demands she stays in country; court proposes unusual arrangement
A four-year old girl born to an Israeli father and to a Filipino mother scheduled for deportation from Israel
will live with her mother in a Hadera detention center before she is deported, the Haifa District Court ruled Thursday.
The court also decreed that the girl’s father could take her to her kindergarten class every morning from the “Michal” detention center in Hadera.
The girls’ parents met several years ago while her father was still married and had an affair with her Filipino-national mother. The child, the product of their affair, was born four years ago. She holds an Israeli citizenship.
Roughly two years ago, the child left Israel with her mother for a visit to the Philippines. A few weeks later the mother informed the child’s father that his daughter was ill.
“He flew directly to them, and found them living in a broken down shanty at the edge of the village without basic hygienic conditions. The father took his daughter back to Israel, where she was hospitalized. Doctors believed she became ill due to the poor conditions in the Filipino village,” the court protocol read.
The child lived with her father ever since. In March 2006, the girl’s mother came back to Israel with a tourist visa secured by the father, but she could not obtain a permanent visa, or authorization to work in Israel. She now faces deportation and resides in a detention center pending hearing in her case.
Mom will not be deported until case deliberated
The father petitioned The Hadera Magistrates' Court for custody of his daughter, maintaining that this is in the best interests of the child facing the squalid and impoverished environment that she faces in the Philippines.
The Magistrates Court initially ruled in favor of the mother given the “Custody of an Infant” clause that states that custody of children under six is almost universally granted to the mother. This , the court determined, outweighed the difficult conditions that the child would encounter if taken to the Philippines.
The father then appealed to the Haifa District Court, which determined that the mother would not be deported until deliberation in the matter is complete. The court also put in place an injunction forbidding the removal of the child from Israel.
“A custody battle in which the mother and child are in the Philippines is a difficult case to handle,” said Haifa District Court Judge Shoshanna Stemer. “At this point, however, I don’t see why mother and daughter should be separated.”
The judge also determined that the father would be allowed to take his daughter to and from Kindergarten every day, though she remained unmoved by his contention that he had sole custody of his daughter hitherto.
“The mother looked horrified and grief-stricken at the prospect of leaving her child behind in Israel,” said Stemer. “The best thing to do right now is to delay her deportation until the custody matter is settled.”
