Help Stateless children achieve Thai citizenship

As always seems to be the case, November was a very busy month for citizenship cases! We were out of town on cases for 9 days in 3 districts during the month, working on five cases. We also met with three students from a local private school who have not been able to register for their citizenship yet, and took on a case of three students from oa partner organization. These cases will begin in January. 

In December, we will make two trips for two existing cases to complete the paperwork and submit to the province government for approval. Once this approval is granted, the paperwork is then submitted to the national registry to get an ID number. This process takes about a year. We are still waiting on one case that we submitted the paperwork for in February. Her paperwork is still in Bangkok waiting to be assigned a number. We were told it would come by the end of the year, but it doesn't look likely. After the age of 15, the process takes much longer than for those under 15 to receive an ID number because it's a different office that processes them. 

Thank you for your support for this process! We look forward to sharing more good news in 2022. 

Citizenship departments have been closed since April due to the latest resurgence of COVID, so most of our cases are on pause. However, we just got word that one of our cases that we filed in January has been processed and we will be going to Fang on August 30 to pick up the kid's official Thai ID card! 

For Ying, our case in Chiang Dao, we had yet another setback. They require her to have a witness who was at the hospital when she was born come to testify, but the witness is on the other side of the country. Currently, inter-province travel is prohibited, so the witness can't come to testify even if the citizenship office was open. So, now it's just a waiting game. She hasn't been able to get a job because all the jobs she is qualified for  with her university degree also require a Thai ID card. So, any prayers for the COVID situation here to improve so government offices can reopen and people's lives con begin would be greatly appreciated. 

Thank you for your support! We have about 8 cases lined up ready to start application processes as soon as the government reopens.