CNIC and orphans

The National Database and Registration Authority is an efficient institution, but it is surprising that it has no provision for issuing national identity cards to orphans without producing their parents’ records. Recently, the issue came to light during the hearing of two petitions in the Sindh High Court and the court told NADRA to prepare a policy to issue CNIC to orphans. An honourable judge aptly asked the respondent’s counsel, “Are orphans not considered Pakistani citizens?”

The issue might have cropped up before and would crop up in future too. An orphan young man and an orphan girl petitioned that they were facing problems because of the lack of CNIC. The man said he was unable to get a job without CNIC, and when he applied for one, NADRA officials told him to present his parents’ records. He said his mother died while giving birth to him and he did not know the whereabouts of his father, so he could not show his parents’ records. In the other petition, a girl submitted that she was being hindered in pursuing her studies as NADRA had refused to issue the B form to her without her parents’ records. She said she was unable to present the documents NADRA officials asked for as her parents died in her infancy. Now for want of CNIC, the relevant department was not issuing her admit card for matriculation exam. The girl stated that after her parents’ death, she lived with different guardians.

The NADRA counsel told the court that orphans could only be issued CNIC on production of their guardian’s records. The court ordered that the girl be felicitated in issuance of CNIC, because in the absence of it she would face problems. It is incomprehensible how the authorities did not take orphans and abandoned children into account while formulating rules for issuance of CNIC. Orphans and abandoned children are sensitive souls so we should avoid injuring their feelings. We should lighten the burden of one another.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 13^th, 2020.

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