By Eman Alam
ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Information, Broadcasting, National Heritage and Culture Attaullah Tarar has said that there is a policy in NADRA regarding children deprived of parental identity.
These children are registered under this existing policy. Such children are required to belong to an orphanage or child protection unit registered with NADRA. He was speaking on the resolution of Senator Samina Mumtaz Zehri in the Upper House on Monday.
The Federal Minister of Information said that when ID cards are made for children without parents, names are put randomly in place of paternity.
He said that if ID cards are issued without parents, they will be discriminated and there will be difficulties for them in the society.
He said that instead of sending this matter to the committee, the house should allow to have a meeting with the chairman NADRA. He said that under the current policy, 280 children have already been registered while it can be further improved.
If anonymous genealogy is written or ID cards are issued without parents, it will be difficult for these children to live in the society, he mentioned.
He said that orphanages and child protection units must be registered with NADRA and an effective system for identifying such children needs to be introduced in NADRA so that registration of such children could be possible.
He said that the Ministry of Information is ready to conduct an awareness campaign in this regard.
The federal minister said that this work was started by the legend of Pakistan late Abdul Sattar Edhi and it also has the protection of the Supreme Court. He said that it has to be seen how this system can be made in which children are not harmed and we can register more and more children in this way and issue ID cards to them.
In response to the question of Samina Mumtaz Zehri, the Federal Minister of Information said that if someone does not have parents, then any name is randomly written in the parentage in the NADRA database and it is known from the database that this child is the one, who has no paternity.
Federal Minister Ataullah Tarar said that there are members of our house who have raised such children and take care of them more than their own children, gave them land, gave them the right to inherit and raised them in the same way as their own children. Let’s raise them in such way, this example is before us, he added.
