The government of Pakistan has won commendation from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees or UNHCR, the United Nation refugee agency for registering 1.4 million Afghan refugees and providing them with a smart identity card.
The country-wide campaign to verify and update the data of the Afghan refugees started on April 15 and ended on December 31 with the support of UNHCR.
The new smart cards have allowed the holders faster and safer access to health and education facilities and to banking services. These cards, which will be valid until 30 June 2023, contain biometric data and are technologically compatible with systems used in Pakistan to authenticate the identities of nationals.
Around 2.3 million Afghan refugees are living in cities across Pakistan.
However, only 1.4 million have registered with the government so far and the rest remain undocumented. In 2018, PM Imran Khan announced that the government will issue identity cards and passports to immigrants from Afghanistan.
“These immigrants have lived here for decades. Their children were born here, but they don’t have identity cards and passports,” he said.
The people of this deprived class cannot get jobs without ID cards and passports, so our government has decided to issue them computerized identity cards and passports, Khan said.—INP
