Karachi: “National Database and Registration Authority has been making serious efforts for last few years to enable the abandoned children with unknown parentage for registration in national database and get CNIC and even contacted the lawmaking authorities to clarify and update the rules in this regard,” says Deputy Chairman NADRA, Tariq Malik.
He said that unfortunately NADRA could not register children with unknown parentage unless the rules in this regard are clarified which restrict NADRA to register them.
He said that though NADRA’s actual role is to just register the citizens under the rules of NADRA Ordinance but we are striving hard to help the children with unknown parentage by initiating some measures to help assess the actual number of such children residing in different orphanages and NGOs.
While elaborating the efforts, Tariq Malik said that NADRA has extensively pursued this goal at different forums for finalization of policy but its due results could not be materialized for the reasons that are not under NADRA’s control.
He said that the issue of naming parentage of abandoned children is a sensitive religious matter and in order to sort out this issue, NADRA also sought fatwa from Shia and Sunni scholars in Iran and Saudi Arabia respectively along with referring of this case to Islamic Ideology Council, which opined, “No specific name could be given. This will create tension for the minors hence any name may be mentioned in parentage if guardian name is known name of guardian may be written.
NADRA on special instructions of President of Pakistan will come out with a policy very soon. “Policies need consultation of all stakeholders and that process is in near ending phase. All NGOs and orphanage houses are consulted.” Tariq Malik said.
There is a pending petition at Federal Shariat Court under reference No. 2/L of 2008 whereby it is informed about this difficulty being faced by the Authority in Registration of abandoned children and the matter is subjudice in the Federal Shariat Court as well as in Supreme Appellate Court of Gilgit-Baltistan.
He said under the existing rules, the cases of orphan children are being processed on the production of guardianship certificate issued by the Guardian Court and a considerable number of such cases have been processed by NADRA including more than 40 children from Edhi foundation as well.
He said that NADRA on its own contacted all NGOs, orphanages and charitable organizations to obtain the details of children with unknown parentage.
He appealed the NGOs to join hands with NADRA on the issue and help the government to make a policy about children with unknown parentage so that they could get registered in NADRA and avail the facilities as the rest of the citizens of Pakistan.
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