Passport at last for woman after years of struggle

Manama : After over a decade of struggle, a woman who lived her whole life in Bahrain, finally obtained nationality from her country of origin.

At age 27, Fathima Hussain finally obtained an Indian passport. Her family has been trying to get her an Indian passport ever since she was born, but due to various reasons their application was rejected. Without a CPR card or any form of identification, life has been difficult for Fathima. “I could not visit a health centre when I got sick, I was not able to find a permanent job or visit my home country,” she said.

“It was hard to find a job, employers only agreed to take me on a temporary basis and I could not climb the career ladder. Without a passport, I could not travel anywhere. I lived 27 years without a passport or ID and I was stressed out,” she told DT News. She thanked Indian Embassy Consular Attache B.S. Bisht for his help. 

“It was a long process, something I have been fighting for all my life. The efforts paid off, special thanks goes out to a few people who strived for me. Bisht went out of his way to help me. My cousin in India also helped a lot. He was the one who was doing all the legwork in India. At one point my cousin was at the police station to follow up my case, he was told that my application would be rejected because they could not verify my identity. However, Bisht called them and spoke to them to save my case. He kept on following up every stage of the process until I got my passport and I am so grateful to him for that.”

Two nations

Fathima was born to a Sri Lankan mother and an Indian father. When her parents applied for her passport, it was rejected because of complications with her mother’s passport. 

“My mother had just converted from Buddhism to Islam and changed her name to Ayesha. However, in her passport it was her old Buddhist name while in my father’s documents it was her new name. Because of this the Indian Embassy asked us to make the amendments before they could issue my passport,” she said.

“At the time Bahrain did not have a Sri Lankan embassy so my mother had to send her passport to Kuwait. The Sri Lankan Embassy in Kuwait lost her passport during the war so my mother lived in Bahrain for 10 years without a passport. Because she didn’t have a passport, my application stalled. I applied in 2009 but I was told that I was too old to apply for a nationality, apparently I had passed the age limit. However, the embassy assigned me a lawyer to work on my case on a pro bono basis. He was able to get the case upto the High Court in India. The case did not move forward, there were some snags in between. However, with the help of my cousin and Bisht I finally received my passport,” she said.