I have been following the progress of this issue of giving birth certificates to children of immigrants who are born here in Greece. Please see here, here (with the heated discussions that follow) and here. Finally, I can report a small ray of hope for the thousands of children who have no legal status in the only country they know.
Kukua Williams, born in Athens to Ghanaian parents 17 months ago, yesterday became the first child born in Greece to migrants to be registered so she can gain Greek nationality. The Municipality of Kaisariani attempted to highlight the gaping hole in the country’s legislation, which effectively leaves such children with no legal status, during a public registration yesterday. The ceremony was of symbolic nature and Kukua faces a battle to gain full citizenship.
Whispers on November 27th, 2009
No Citizenship at Birth on November 23rd, 2009
Citizenship for Children on November 5th, 2009
Children and Citizenship on October 22nd, 2009
World Watchdogs on January 14th, 2009
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My internet problems were due to human error rather than foul play but I understand what you mean.
I winder if you could expand on your belief that
Don’t worry about taking up space. That is what this blog is for !
I don’t get very well the concept here, so I believe people may disagree with it.
Hey, good news. Thank you for reporting DD.
From a vyrionotis, not living in his country, to the guys at Kaisariani:
Μπραβο ρε παιδια !
In fact this is two separate issues compounded by the stupid nature of the greek citizenship code:
a) The fact that birth certificates are not properly issued for children born in Greece by non-citizen parents and some convoluted procedure is required for the embassies of the countries their parents are citizens of to get the equivalent paperwork.
b) The fact that jus sanguinis is the rule of law regarding Greek citizenship and hence children born and/or raised in Greece do not automatically claim Greek citizenship.
The role the δημοτολόγια (municipal registries) play in ascertaining one has Greek citizenship is the main reason that the crazy situation in (a) has arisen. Of course embassies and consulates are not really responsible for birth certificates and should not be. A change in the law disengaging the two issues would be extreme helpful and is long overdue.
As for the automatic conferring of citizenship to children of non-citizens born (and/or raised) here it is a matter of changing the Greek citizenship code to jus soli. This symbolic ceremony will accomplish nothing beyond the PR effect and it has even less of a chance of accomplishing anything via the courts than the same-sex marriage had as it is clearly illegal.
Finally while I expect one would find most if not all Greeks willing to fix problem (a) above, part (b) is a whole different story even when it comes to children born and raised here. I simply do not see the public behind it – apart from part of the left and the libertarian center and right (miniscule amount of people that make a lot of noise but have no votes behind them). Papandreou has been friendly to the idea and has some of these people in his team but when he comes to power he will probably have to avoid this in deference to a lot of internal resistance.
And before people go on in the usual litany of complaints about Greek racism and infatuation with blood purity and similar crap (espoused by a very vocal minority no doubt) keep in mind that the prospect of naturalized KLA members or jihadis is extremely frightening to most Greeks. And having been born or grown up in Greece most certainly does not preclude one from developing nationalist or extremist ideologies that target the Greek nation. For those willing to look beyond their PC principles at the young faces celebrating Kossovo’s independence all over Greece with flags and slogans or the Albanian flags carried by a few of the youths during the events of December and even more recently it should be clear that the automatic conferring of citizenship to anyone born here would essentially arm an existing 5th column in Greece with the rights of a citizen. The solution of course is not to avoid giving citizenship to all children of immigrants but to carefully examine all citizenship applications (and make them easier and more affordable).
Oath Taken,
nice presentation that make things clear.
I do understand that this is about PR and I can even suspect that some politicians needed badly some free advertisement. But I very much like the subject he chosen.
I’m certainly one vote for jus soli, without being particularly vocal abut it, but if the question is raised I’ll go for it.
On the other hand I do understand that people may be afraid by according citizenship to external elements but this is not really the case of a newborn. Education may turn it to a KLA member or a jihadist, and I will not object that a large part of education depends from the parents inclinations.
Maybe an improvement would be laicity along with a stronger public educational system, which is probably a much more utopian view for Greece, but hey! I did left the country as soon as it was possible.
Anyway, I very much like the idea of em>jus soli and not just for Greece, in general.
I think that the solution is not to examine carefully citizenship applications for people born in a state, but, if some regulation is wanted to avoid a 5th column, to examine immigration applications in a more careful manner.
That’s a good thing. Those children should not be forced into this ridiculous position where they have no idea what their status it. They are as Greek as anyone and their status should reflect that.