According to plans, asylum seekers will receive a larger sum of money in the first month of withdrawal from the fund.
Officials are also seeking a solution for asylum seekers who have no money deposited and who cannot make a living, in order to avoid them going hungry. In addition to the money that they would spend on living, the plan states that asylum seekers would also be required to pay hundreds of shekels a month in health insurance, for which they would be entitled to withdraw further funds from their deposits.
A subcommittee was appointed at the Prime Minister’s Office this week to handle the issue of foreigners amid the coronavirus crisis, headed by Attorney Dina Dominitz, director of the Human Trafficking Unit in the Justice Ministry. The panel will be a forum for government, business and social and civil service group representatives, with a goal of formulating a policy within a few days and gaining approval from Interior Minister Aryeh Deri. The committee will also seek solutions for asylum seekers who need to self-isolate, and to lower the risk of infection breaking out among them.
Sensitive information
Economic difficulties have for now overshadowed the other fears faced by asylum seekers, though these concerns have not disappeared. But the fear of wider infection from the coronavirus and the need for people to self-isolate, has raised these issues anew.
Sources at Physicians for Human Rights say asylum seekers worry that any personal details they give the Health Ministry could be leaked to Population Authority personnel, who could seek to deport them.
It is also unclear who would fund medical care for those with no status if they are infected with the coronavirus. The Health Ministry has ordered hospitals and Magen David Adom to provide treatment with no questions asked about medical insurance.
“It’s definitely a step in the right direction but we still haven’t seen how this is actually carried out,” said Dr. Zoe Gutzeit, of PHR’s immigration department.
“Not everyone who has symptoms will be hospitalized, and who is going to treat someone without insurance in these times?” Gutzeit said.
There is also the question of who will speak to these people and how. Again, the problem of communication problems between the state and the asylum seekers arises. It’s not just a matter of having an identity number to key in on a helpline. For the most part information is not provided to this community in their language. PHR says that as a result of their appeals, the Health Ministry has translated some information into other languages, among them Tigrinya, which is spoken in Eritrea. But the translation takes some time and the information made available is often outdated.
A document circulated by the city of Tel Aviv in English urged people to stay home except to purchase food, medicine, or see the doctor. There was no mention of permission to leave the home in certain other instances such as to go or a walk or to go to work.
“Compounding the fears felt by asylum seekers is their exposure to inaccurate information from the Health Ministry,” said Sigal Rozen, founder of the Hotline for Refugees and Migrants. “Many of them think erroneously that they are not allowed to go out to work and that they cannot leave their homes for any reason. This only intensifies their distress and fears.”
The Tel Aviv Municipality said it has worked to make this information available in English and Tigrinya in the Neve Sha’anan neighborhood, where many asylum seekers live. They are working jointly with the Mesila organization that helps foreigners, and have posted 5,000 flyers in these languages with Health Ministry instructions. These instructions have also been issued over loudspeakers.
Whether these efforts are enough isn’t altogether clear, but on Monday the city took another step, after protests from human rights groups’, sending representatives to Neve Sha’anan to speak to residents.