Committee Chairwoman Irini Charalambidou said after the session that the issue has been perpetuated since 2012 when the Commissioner for the Rights of the Child raised the issue of marginalization and stigmatization of a doubly vulnerable group, such as children of unknown fathers or children of single women.
Ms. Charalambidou stated that according to the official response sent to the Commissioner by the Ministry of Interior, in the 26 member states of the European Union these data are not listed and called on those in charge to explain why in Cyprus it is necessary to continue such a practice.
“The reasons we heard were not satisfactory. “I have the impression that in the age of information technology, where everything is computerized, where access to information with an identity card number is a given, the reason we heard today for not changing the design of political identities does not exist.” The Ministry of Interior had undertaken the responsibility of informing the Parliament about the new design and the cost of the identities.
“We have not received any study or information. Therefore, on June 6, the Minister of Interior and all the involved bodies at the highest level, including the Police, which has been identified in case of a common name, will be called to explain to us how the issue of identification arises using the ID card number » , added.
Asked about the possible risk of losing family roots in case the parents 'details are not indicated in the IDs, Ms. Charalambidou answered that the rest of the EU states have no problem locating the roots or cohesion of the families by not mentioning the parents' names, while she added that the committee raised the question of whether it is possible to use two types of identity, with or without listing the names of the parents, for which it expects an answer from the Minister of Interior and the Director General of the Ministry, as he repeated, at the meeting of 6 June.
DISY MP Savia Orfanidou said that the information contained in the political identities may not currently serve the purpose for which they were included at the time the issue was decided, while at the same time creating a big problem for some children who are stigmatized. “As DISY, we stand for any effort to eliminate all discrimination against children and for any effort to defend the human rights of every child,” he said.
“We have asked some questions to the competent ministry, such as why it is necessary to indicate the father and mother details in the IDs, where this need comes from, who decides on these issues and whether there will be a choice in the future for those who do not want their inscription on the identities “, he stressed.
Ms. Orfanidou added that the digitization of the Department of Archives and Population, but also the creation of a digitized archive that will include all the data will solve many of the problems that existed in the previous decades so that the entry controls can be done correctly- exit of children from the Republic, but also the police checks. “We are in favor of the existence of safeguards, but also in favor of any effort to prevent these discriminations against children who have neither mother nor father, many times neither mother”, he added.
DIKO MP Pavlos Mylonas said that there are various problems related to the formal side of the issue and the Ministry of Interior, as well as the citizen's relations with the state services, adding that those women who choose other procedures to become mothers clearly have rights, but the right of choice cannot be secured by forcing the vast majority not to mention the name father or mother.
“In a world in the context of globalization, which treats man as an accounting number and as an economic tool, there must be continuity and the man who is born from where he comes from and where he is going, the root, the “identity and family, without implying that someone who does not have a father or mother does not have the right to have an identity or a sense of family,” he said.
“We have to continue something that existed and exists in a place that loses its identity,” he noted, adding that it is a matter of self-evident presence of the figure of father and mother in a family, where there can be no or It is a choice not to exist, it is respected, but it is everyone's right to choose whether their father or mother's name will appear on their ID or anywhere else.
The MP of the Ecologists Movement Alexandra Attalidou stated that the relationship between the citizen and the state should first serve the citizen, ensuring his human rights, while the relationship that the state wants through identity is control, ie to be able to control and identify citizens, adding that there are many ways today with the available technology for the state to know exactly the details of the citizens without necessarily having the names father and mother on the political identity card.
” For us, the protection of human rights and the dignity of citizens and especially children is paramount. That is why we expect the Ministry of Interior to finally explain why it has not responded to the Commissioner for the Rights of the Child, why it has proceeded with the implementation of the new identity system, while it had undertaken to do so before and nothing has changed. “We believe that in the next session we should have these answers, as to why Cyprus is different from the other 26 EU countries, asking for an indication of the additional details, so that we, as Members of Parliament, can take a position,” he concluded. .
Source: KYPE
