RIYADH – The Human Rights Commission (HRC) made a successful intervention to end the almost 20-yearlong ordeal of a young Saudi woman with her father being the stumbling block in her attempt to gain the civil status document, by repeatedly obstructing her. The suffering of the woman started from her childhood following the separation of her parents while she was eight months old. The young woman continued to stay with her mother all these years without any document to prove her identity except the birth certificate. Her mother approached the Ministry of Interior to get her name added in the Civil Status registry when her father refused to do this. However, this move also ended in failure due to the father's denial of her parenthood. Consequently, the mother approached the Civil Status Court and got a verdict directing the father to add her name in the registry. However, delaying tactics of completing the prompted the mother to approach the HRC to get the national ID for her daughter who had reached the age of 20 years without any proof of her identity. The commission, in coordination with the concerned authorities, addressed her daughter's plight and subsequently the national identity was issued, ending the suffering that lasted for two decades. Bandar Al-Hajri, director general of the Department for Grievances at the Commission, said that the grievances that the commission worked on with regard to ID and nationality constituted approximately 14 percent of the total number of complaints received by the commission during the year 2019. These complaints related to the delay on the part of a number of parents in obtaining ID documents for their families or blocking them to have access to the documents, either because of negligence and lack of awareness about the seriousness of this requirement or because of family disputes in which children often become the victims. The HRC works to guide the stakeholders with what they must complete with the competent authorities, with submission of their requests. It also undertakes direct coordination with the competent authorities with these requests to verify the validity of the information, and to process it according to the nationality and civil status laws and their executive regulations. Al-Hajri stressed the importance of dealing with such complaints and the need to bring down their numbers. He also highlighted the importance of relying on the provisions of the law for protection against abuse and the child protection law in dealing with such cases. He noted the high level of responsiveness received by HRC from government agencies in this regard.
