Implications of random additions

A parliamentary committee was given more details this week of the peculiar policy under which the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) registers orphans and children with unknown parentage in its national database. The MNAs were told that NADRA randomly picks names of fathers for such children from its system without the consent of the persons concerned. While registering such children, the system adds the name of the child to that person’s family tree. This is a most unusual system.

To begin with, adding a name to a person’s family tree without their knowledge can lead to many complications. A new family member could raise suspicions on the head of the family and may even lead to domestic and other quarrels. While NADRA insists that it does not issue a CNIC to such children that have been adjusted in other peoples’ families, matters of inheritance and succession could surface in years to come. But there is no guarantee that this inclusion cannot be used by the child in question at a later date to their own benefit. Whenever family members would know that there was another person in their family, it would be a complex issue for both the family and the person who was added to the family tree.

More important, to add a name to someone’s family without the knowledge of that family borders on the criminal. There are many principles that are being violated here. There must be a simpler and less devious way to accommodate these orphans and children with unknown parentage. Given that both parliament and the Supreme Court have endorsed their demand for national identification papers, NADRA will have to come up with a better system. The provision of identity papers is the right of every one who fulfils the criteria for nationality. We cannot discriminate against those who cannot show a family tree. A new system must be introduced for such citizens. NADRA cannot continue to look for shortcuts, ignoring the larger problems that are caused by such measures.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 8^th, 2018.

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