CANYON DE LAS HERMOSAS, Colombia, May 28 (UNHCR): At the age of 75, Delsabé Suso Sanchez got her first identity card last week, thanks to a mobile documentation campaign supported by UNHCR.
Until then, Delsa did not even have a birth certificate. As far as the state was concerned, she had no legal existence. She was born in Canyon de Las Hermosas, a mountainous region of Colombia that has been under guerrilla influence for decades. Because of the conflict, state institutions have not had access to this rural and under-developed region and have been unable to guarantee basic rights and services.
Earlier in May, a mobile unit of the National Registry Office, accompanied by UNHCR, entered the Canyon de Las Hermosas for the first time at the start of a month-long documentation campaign, which is currently continuing.
– Our presence provides a symbol of international neutrality which helps state organisms to reach all citizens, including those who live in the most fought-over areas, explained Jean-Noel Wetterwald, UNHCR’s representative in Colombia.
More than 700.000 identity documents have been issued since 2004, when UNHCR began its cooperation with the state registry office’s Unit for Attention to Vulnerable Populations. With seven mobile units operating in the most difficult and isolated parts of the country, the unit reaches out to the most vulnerable population groups, including displaced people and those at risk of displacement as well as indigenous communities.
The seven mobile registration units each come equipped with computers, fingerprint materials, cameras and a satellite antenna to connect the unit with the national database in Bogotá. The project is part of a significant national effort to guarantee the constitutional right of each citizen to a legal identity. As well as legal rights and access to basic services, documentation can be a question of life or death in conflict areas.
– If you don’t have an ID card, you are a suspect for everybody, one man explained while waiting for his card in the small chapel of La Virginia, where the registration team had set up for the day. He had left his farm at dawn to make the seven-hour walk to the chapel, bringing his five children, his wife and his elderly father. No one in the family had a birth certificate, and he was especially relieved to be able to register his three sons, aged 14, 12 and 10.
Læs hele artiklen: www.unhcr.org
