In a country like Yemen, many people live outside the legal and civil meaning of citizenship. Tens of thousands of Yemenis do not have documents proving their nationality, while many who have personal or family identities (Cards) provide incorrect personal information!
Fatima Ali (a pseudonym), tells "Khuyut": "My age was registered in the Civil Registration Authority as it is, currently, 40 years, because the school in which I was studying raised my age during the elections so that I could obtain an electoral card and participate in the elections." Fatima continues: “Actually, I was born in 1993, that means, I am 29 years old until March, but the committee that issued the electoral cards at that time registered me as a person born in 1984, meaning that at that time I reached the legal age for voting. During that period, I did not have any documents to amend this forged information, and when I wanted to amend it, it required long and complicated procedures from me.
Fatima continues: "I came from Haradh—one of the districts of Hajjah, which is located on the border of Saudi Arabia—thereafter, the proceedings lasted more than three months. However, I filed a case to change the age, but the court was not satisfied with the papers that I had (the seat number for the high school exam), as I had neither a birth certificate nor an attestation. After that, I filed a case in December 2022. During this application, I conducted several forensic examinations, as well as scans of the jawbone, chest, and pelvis, to show the true age."
"After the verdict was issued in my favor to amend the age, based on the examinations and documents and the acceptance of the age-changing fatwa, I went again to complete the transaction and pay the $50 fine. In addition to the clearance procedures from the Civil Registration Authority and from the Security and Intelligence Bureau. It required me to stay in Sana'a for three months and spend an amount of 150,0000 Yemeni Riyals on housing and transportation costs,” she added.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hllbagXEdcOec20qO-UFlmLvJyb0R_r8/view?usp=drivesdk
Falsification of Witnesses
There are several reasons behind the errors in the personal documents, either because of attempts to obtain a card before reaching the legal age for the purpose of traveling, voting, obtaining licenses, or escaping from the conscription that was imposed in the past.
Likewise, the traditional neighborhood bosses known as aqil contribute to multiplying the randomness of data and the issuance of inaccurate documents or to persons under the legal age through the recommendations that they sometimes give, even to non-Yemeni people. As there are many neighborhood bosses, before 2011, they used to take money in return for recommending non-Yemeni people, specifically Africans. Ali Mohammed, a Somali of Ethiopian origin, obtained a Yemeni identity card from the Hajjah governorate, located in the northwest of Sana'a governorate, before 2006, according to his electoral card, a recommendation from the neighborhood boss(aqil), and copies of two identity cards for two witnesses of the same nationality who had obtained them with the same method.
Thousands of people whose data, personal information, identification and study documents, and work papers are contradictory. Consequently, these documents may seem to be for several people while they are for one person only, as a result of data differences. In addition to the randomness of registration and the lack of a unified mechanism in government departments. All this contributed to creating chaos in documentation, which caused the loss of many jobs and travel opportunities for individuals as a consequence of their entering into a series of amendment and correction transactions, which often occur shortly before travel.
Illiteracy is the Cause of Inaccurate Documentation
Illiteracy contributes to the spread of many errors in civil documents—personal and family—as most Yemenis do not know how to write their names and do not know whether their names and personal data were written correctly or not, in addition to the possibility of errors as a result of manual entry. Whereas the electronic entry of the Civil Registration Authority, which was established in the seventies, was approved only in 2005.
It is worth noting that there are thousands of people whose personal data and information, identification and study documents, and work papers are contradictory, as these documents may seem to be for several people while they are for one person only as a result of data differences. In addition to the randomness of registration and the lack of a unified mechanism in government departments. All this contributed to the creation of chaos in documentation, which, in turn, caused the loss of many job and travel opportunities for individuals as a consequence of their entering into a series of amendment and correction transactions, which often occur shortly before travel.
The citizen fixes what was spoiled by randomness
Thus, the employees of the archive at the Civil Registration Authority face the burden of renewing and correcting the archived data with blurred and unclear fonts, and from the worn-out documents that were manually recorded by former employees, while the person who wants to amend his data follows a series of procedures, starting with going to court, filing a case to obtain a verdict in the presence of witnesses, and after obtaining the verdict from the court and publishing the amendment and the verdict in the official newspaper, then he goes to the civil registry and pays the fines. After that, he completes the transactions at security and intelligence facilities and takes approval from the Mufti, passing through the rest of the necessary signatures; all that requires about three weeks to a month, as reported by a source in the Civil Registration Authority, who preferred not to be named, considering that these mistakes are individual and the person concerned bears the responsibility for them.
Consequences of the Amendment Routine
In the context, Ali Yahya (a pseudonym), from Dhamar governorate- 105.8 km away from the Capital-Sana’a, tells Khuyut that:” I lost my scholarship, which I got as a result of my excellence in 2012, to Russia through the free Scholarships Program for Outstanding Students, because my surname was not included in the high school certificate so that it matches my ID card on which the passport will be issued. Accordingly, the Civil Registration Authority refused to give me a passport. Yahya continues: "after that, I tried to amend the secondary school certificate data, and I paid a fine, but because of the long proceedings routine, which lasted more than two months, I missed the scholarship! I was deeply saddened. I wished that my family and I would have noticed this issue and corrected it immediately after the error occurred".
It should be noted that the law stipulates paying a fine of (3,000 to 10,000 Yemeni riyals) in the event of reporting an error in the data after sixty days from the date of issuance of the document.
For his part, Haitham Al-Namir, a lawyer, tells "Khuyut": "The person affected by the error must file a lawsuit to correct the name, and attach evidence that proves the validity of the amendment he mentioned, such as the brother's or father's ID. After the President of the Court briefs the case, a session is held in which the case is submitted, and then it is answered in a second session, where the Civil Registration Authority’s lawyer requests that the plaintiff be fined a financial penalty, and then the verdict is pronounced.
Questionnaire
As a result of the lack of accurate statistics on the number of people who encounter errors in their documents, the two female journalists resorted to conducting an electronic questionnaire for a random sample of 86 respondents in the Capital Secretariat (Sana'a). The results of the questionnaire showed that the percentage of those who have errors in their personal data was 89.5%, while the percentage of people who have no errors in their data was 10.5%. Whereas the error rate in the year of birth was 58.1%, followed by the error in writing the name and surname by 19.4%, the error rate in writing the day and month of birth was 12.1%, the error rate in writing the place of birth was 7.7%, and the error in determining the blood group was 2.7%.
Whilst the Civil Registration Authority ranked first, according to the questionnaire, in causing errors with a rate of 39.5%, followed by schools with a rate of 23.2%, whereas the traditional neighborhood bosses known as aqil, universities, and the absence of a culture of documentation among parents, with a rate of 37.7%.
However, the most prominent problems caused by these errors were: loss of scholarships, which took a rate of 24.4%, while the problem of obtaining a passport by 19.8%, annulment of the marriage contract by 4.2%, and the failure to certify a qualification or doubt about the data contained therein due to their mismatch by 3.2%.
Moreover, the participants in the questionnaire confirmed their many attempts to correct the errors, but they are often shocked by the wall of bureaucracy and the lack of response, which amounted to 31.4%, for a period of time ranging from three months to a year.
Pointless Statistics Centers
Although there are more than 22 centers in Yemen, the amendment of documents is only carried out by the General Administration of Civil Registration Authority in Sana’a, which makes the amendment more complicated for citizens, who sometimes abandon the idea of amendment, if there is no extreme necessity.
Amal Mohammed, an archive specialist at a public school in Sana'a, tells Khuyut: "The presence of errors in the data of a particular student has an impact on his future at the university and on his right to obtain a personal card when he reaches the legal age. Therefore, we always ask the student’s parent, when enrolling his son or daughter in school, for the birth certificate and the father’s card to verify the name and date.”
Amal continues: "Currently, the process has become easy thanks to the presence of the student's online portal, which enabled the specialist to easily modify." For his part, Omar Al-Amri, boss(aqil) of Bir Al-Amri neighborhood, tells Khuyut about the controls that he follows in order to recommend a person: “When a resident of the neighborhood requests my recommendation, and the stamp on the form that he has, to obtain a personal card; in principle, he and his family must be known to us and live in the neighborhood, then I go with him to the police station, to stamp the form in the presence of two witnesses, and in the event that he is a displaced person, we communicate with the competent authorities in the area where he was displaced in order to identify him, and then he must bring four witnesses and identifiers, who confirm that he is displaced. Adding that he should have a card from the area from which he was displaced, and bringing a commercial guarantee.”
Despite all this, the issue still needs a radical solution to stop the draining of time and money, and to correct the official data and documents.
