The governments of south Sudan must make sure that everybody will get a nationality - that nobody will become stateless because of this separation.
I got rounded up by the police in Quito as I didn't have my passport with me. I was in prison for a night, which was pretty frightening, made more so when one of my male companions started crying.
Can I see some ID?" "WE DON'T HAVE ID," said Jay, loudly. "'CAUSE WE'RE CANADIAN. WE DON'T USE ID...THERE. AND THAT'S WHY WE LOOK SO YOUNG. 'CAUSE WE'RE CANADIAN." Doug stiffened. Jay sounded crazy. Doug tried looking extra sane to even things out.
It might help to know that in Afghanistan citizenship papers and birth certificates and the official registration of births and deaths are the exotica of faraway places. One is born 'in the time of the pomegranate harvest' or some such thing or one's birthdate is recorded as the first day of the year if you are even aware of the year you were born.
I was fortunate enough to be an American citizen by birth and I have the birth certificate to prove it.
Back in the East you can't do much without the right papers, but with the right papers you can do anything The believe in papers. Papers are power.
The three most important documents a free society gives are a birth certificate, a passport, and a library card.
I got my first passport in 1989, when I was 28.
No documents, no person.
You have to make sure that [grants] reach people by virtue of their Identity Documents.
Yes, you need a passport to prove to the world that you exist. The people at passport control, they cannot look at you and see you are a person. No! They have to look at a little photograph of you. Then they believe you exist.
We very constantly run this campaign to encourage people to go and get Identity Documents, to register, and so on. We'll continue to do that.
Formerly man had only a body and a soul. Now he needs a passport as well for without it he will not be treated like a human being.
