Last Thursday our caregiving sector manager, lawyer Meytal Russo, appeared in front of the Immigration Law Appeals Court. She challenged the Population, Immigration and Borders Authority (PIBA) to get off its high horse and stop its repeated insistenceon sending migrant workers back to their homeland, if they commit the heinous sin of developing romantic relationships. Who are the sinners? In this instance, a couple of caregiving workers met in church in Israel and fell in love: she lives in Jerusalem and he lives in Acre (Akko), both of them had been here for under two years and have been bearing a significant debt – 12-18 thousands USD – which they had had to pay as brokerage fees just for the permission to work here. Now they want to send their baby daughter back to India, to her maternal grandmother so that they can continue working and paying back their debts. But Israel insists: one of the parents will not be allowed to work here. Any attempt to prevent partners from working here, because they formed a relationship, severely violates basic human rights: the right to privacy, to dignity and to family life. For as long as the state pursues this policy, while ignoring the high court for justice verdicts and fundamental human rights, we will continue to fight for any migrant worker’s right to love and become a parent.
In the 12 previous appeals on similar cases, lawyer Michal Tadjer represented the workers.
