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Refugees, migrants, women, transgender people and nomadic communities are among those without the vital computerised national identity card.
After three years of repeated attempts to get her digital national identity card, Rubina – a woman from Karachi in Pakistan – decided to take her battle to court, winning a landmark victory.
Until then, Pakistanis had not been able to get the Computerized National Identity Card, or CNIC, unless they presented their father’s ID card – an impossibility for many people, including those like Rubina who were raised by single mother
The card is vital to vote, access government benefits including public schools and healthcare, open a bank account or apply for jobs. “I would turn up there, and be told to bring my father’s card,” said Rubina, s., 21
My mother raised me after my father abandoned us soon after my birth – how could I furnish his identity papers then?”
Rubina’s frustration drove her to file a petition at the high court in Sindh province, which in November ruled that the government agency that oversees the CNIC must issue her a card based on her mother’s citizenship record.
For Rubina, the decision meant she could apply to take over her mother’s job as an attendant in the state education department when her mother retired.
More widely, her case ends the effective exclusion of children of single mothers from the ID card scheme, said Harris Khalique, secretary-general of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, a nonprofit.
Without a CNIC, neither can any public service be accessed, nor can any banking transaction be conducted,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation .“In short, one has no rights at all as a citizen.”
The agency in charge of the CNIC, the National Database and Registration Authority, has said it is striving to reach people who have so far been excluded.
“The government has a clear policy that people who are supposed to be registered in the database will not be excluded,” said Salman Sufi, head of the prime minister’s Strategic Reforms Unit, which oversees the implementation of federal policy.
Marginalised left out
Established in 2000, the National Database and Registration Authority maintains the nation’s biometric database, and says it has issued some 120 million CNICs to 96% of adults in the nation of about 212 million people.
Each card comprises a 13-digit unique ID, a photograph of the person, their signature, and a microchip that contains their iris scans and fingerprints. Yet millions of people in Pakistan, including women, transgender people, migrant workers and nomadic communities are still without a CNIC.
More than 1 billion people globally have no way of proving their identity, according to the World Bank.
While governments across the world are adopting digital ID systems they say are improving governance, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights has said they exclude marginalised groups, and should not be a prerequisite for accessing social protection schemes.
A study of migrant workers in Karachi by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan last year showed that women were more likely not to have a CNIC, putting them at risk of destitution if their husband died or left the family.
www.google.com
www.reuters.com
After three years of repeated attempts to get her digital national identity card, Rubina – a woman from Karachi in Pakistan – decided to take her battle to court, winning a landmark victory.
Until then, Pakistanis had not been able to get the Computerized National Identity Card, or CNIC, unless they presented their father’s ID card – an impossibility for many people, including those like Rubina who were raised by single mother
The card is vital to vote, access government benefits including public schools and healthcare, open a bank account or apply for jobs. “I would turn up there, and be told to bring my father’s card,” said Rubina, s., 21
My mother raised me after my father abandoned us soon after my birth – how could I furnish his identity papers then?”
Rubina’s frustration drove her to file a petition at the high court in Sindh province, which in November ruled that the government agency that oversees the CNIC must issue her a card based on her mother’s citizenship record.
For Rubina, the decision meant she could apply to take over her mother’s job as an attendant in the state education department when her mother retired.
More widely, her case ends the effective exclusion of children of single mothers from the ID card scheme, said Harris Khalique, secretary-general of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, a nonprofit.
Without a CNIC, neither can any public service be accessed, nor can any banking transaction be conducted,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation .“In short, one has no rights at all as a citizen.”
The agency in charge of the CNIC, the National Database and Registration Authority, has said it is striving to reach people who have so far been excluded.
“The government has a clear policy that people who are supposed to be registered in the database will not be excluded,” said Salman Sufi, head of the prime minister’s Strategic Reforms Unit, which oversees the implementation of federal policy.
Marginalised left out
Established in 2000, the National Database and Registration Authority maintains the nation’s biometric database, and says it has issued some 120 million CNICs to 96% of adults in the nation of about 212 million people.
Each card comprises a 13-digit unique ID, a photograph of the person, their signature, and a microchip that contains their iris scans and fingerprints. Yet millions of people in Pakistan, including women, transgender people, migrant workers and nomadic communities are still without a CNIC.
More than 1 billion people globally have no way of proving their identity, according to the World Bank.
While governments across the world are adopting digital ID systems they say are improving governance, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights has said they exclude marginalised groups, and should not be a prerequisite for accessing social protection schemes.
A study of migrant workers in Karachi by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan last year showed that women were more likely not to have a CNIC, putting them at risk of destitution if their husband died or left the family.
‘No rights as a citizen’: Pakistan’s digital ID has excluded millions from social welfare schemes
Refugees, migrants, women, transgender people and nomadic communities are among those without the vital computerised national identity card.
www.google.com
CORRECTED-FEATURE-Pakistan's digital ID card locks out millions
After three years of repeated attempts to get her digital national identity card, Rubina - a woman from the Pakistani city of Karachi - decided to take her battle to court, winning a landmark victory.
www.reuters.com
