KARACHI: Like millions of other Pakistanis, Ahmed Raza lacks identification documents, making him invisible in the eyes of his government and preventing him from working or attending school.
Parents in the more than 240 million-person South Asian country typically wait until their child is five years old to get a birth certificate, which is necessary for enrollment in the majority of Pakistan’s schools.
Raza managed to get away with it until the end of elementary school, but his mother was forced to pull him out when his middle school asked for documentation.
“They request my ID card if I go job hunting. In Karachi, the economic center of the south, the 19-year-old stated, “They won’t hire me without it.”
