Trafficked and battered mother of four faces uncertain visa future

The life of L. has all the elements of a drama, except that in a movie the end is often happy, while L.'s conclusion is still unknown. "I have no one in the world except for my children, and I can't feed them," she told Haaretz yesterday. "If they decide to deport me, I don't know what I'll do," L. said.

In about a month, the interministerial committee of the Population and Immigration Authority will decide whether L. will be deported or will receive the visa she has been seeking for years, which will allow her to remain in Israel with her children.

L., 29, came to Israel from Lithuania at age 15. She was told she was going to be a childcare worker, but when she arrived, she was put to work as a prostitute.

"When I came here they beat me, threw me into an apartment. They said that if I resisted they would kill me and if I went to the police they'd put me in jail. I had no choice."

A year later, L. met an Israeli Arab from Lod who helped her escape, leaving all her papers behind.

Shortly afterward she converted, and they married in the Sharia court in Be'er Sheva. They now have four children.

After they were married, L. and her husband approached the Interior Ministry in Eilat, where they lived, to resolve her status. However, they were told she would need a passport to even begin the process.

The Lithuanian Embassy refused to issue one, but it did give her an identification document. The Interior Ministry in Eilat did not accept the document and continued to refuse to begin either a "graduated process" of naturalization, or an expedited process based on humanitarian considerations.

This "graduated" process takes four and a half years, beginning with a tourist visa, then a work visa, temporary residency for four years, and finally, citizenship.

In 2006, L.'s husband was arrested for forging a driver's license and spent six weeks in jail. When he got out, L. said his behavior had changed. "He started threatening me, not allowing me to speak, and if I was late coming home, he would go crazy and say he was going to take the children."

About a year later, L. fled with the children to a battered women's shelter. The shelter helped her get her Lithuanian passport, and she then applied to Interior Ministry for permanent residency with the help of attorney Sarah Lewis of the Israel Religious Action Center.

She asked to receive permanent residency based either on the fact that an expedited procedure exists for a woman who is at the end of the application process and who is battered by her husband, the father of her children, or for humanitarian reasons, which the interministerial committee judges.

The committee did grant L. a work visa, which will be up in a month.

L. now works as a cleaning woman. "I have to feed my children and I can't be choosy," she said. "Only God and I know how hard my situation is. I can't sleep because of my thoughts and there is no one to go to for help."

The Interior Ministry responded: "L. has been in Israel illegally since 1995. Only in recent years did she apply to the Interior Ministry to legalize her status.

In a humanitarian decision by the interministerial committee of the Population and Immigration Authority, in consideration of her special circumstances, she was granted status and given a B-1 visa for a year, and at the end of that year, she will submit a request that will be examined."

The ministry also said the procedure with regard to an expedited visa for battered women did not apply to L. because she is not still with her husband.