Facilitating expats

A Senate panel has asked the government to ease visa processes for Pakistani expatriates intending to visit their home country. Among them are people who due to pressure of circumstances had declared themselves of some other nationalities while immigrating to European countries. The other day, the Senate committee was having a briefing on the assistance provided to such Pakistanis who were now having difficulties visiting their country of origin. In its previous meeting, members had discussed whether Pakistanis living abroad should be given the facility of Pakistan Origin Card (POC) to enable them to visit the home country on social occasions like wedding and funeral and to buy property here.

In the previous meeting too, the committee had asked the Ministries of Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development to put in place a mechanism to help Pakistanis living abroad to get the POC smoothly. However, some members of the committee had opposed the move, saying those who had acquired citizenship of other countries by describing themselves as Afghan nationals should not be given the POC. Senator Sajjad Turi saw no harm in issuing the POC to Pakistanis who had extended families and roots in Pakistan. Senator Dilawar Khan endorsed this view.

In the present-day world people are being driven to migrate to other countries due to a variety of reasons like civil strife, lack of job opportunities, growing poverty in their own lands, etc. The latest addition to such groups is climate refugees, who are being forced to leave their ancestral lands due to changes being brought about by climate change. A few years ago, Bhola Island in Bangladesh partially disappeared, and as a result around 200,000 inhabitants of the island were forced to migrate. These people are now settled in Venice, Italy, and other places of the world. Expatriates should be given all necessary facilities for they benefit the home country in one form or the other.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 14^th, 2019.

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