Help Stateless children achieve Thai citizenship

Since June, the government changed the way citizenship was processed, giving the local offices the power to assign ID numbers and give out the ID cards. This cuts out about 5 steps that we previously had to go through to get someone their human rights! Sine this new protocol was enacted, things have moving much faster for our clients. Updates on some of our longest and most complicated cases:

Ying: (been working on this case for 12 years) Finished her background check and submitted her paperwork to be assigned a Thai ID number. This process takes about 6 months. 

Naleh (been working on this case for 5 years, and her family for much longer): Finally got her place of birth corrected to say Thailand instead of Burma, submitted her application for citizenship and did her fingerprints to do a background check. Her daughter now needs to get her witnesses to do her birth certificate and she will get her citizenship automatically since her mom was born in Thailand. 

Ploy (she has been working on her case for 10 years): Submitted for her citizeship but they sent it back and said her dad has to either claim his citizenship or relinquish his rights so she can get her Thai citizenship. He is living in Burma, so we scheduled for him to come talk to the government officers in April. 

Tip and Fah both finally got their ID cards, after a combined total of over 20 years pursuing their rights! 

Ann: she finally was able to convince one office to do her birth certificate! Her witnesses all took the bus down from the mountains to give testimony that she was indeed more in a Thai village and only a week later, she got her official birth certificate! This was so much faster than usual. Monday, we will take her dad to Fang, a few hours away from Chiang Mai, to get his paperwork updated, and then Wednesady she will file her application for citizenship and finally be a full member of Thai society after decades of pursuing this!