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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | At Passport Office, Women Encounter Discriminatory, Humiliating Procedures -Gaurav Vivek Bhatnagar

At Passport Office, Women Encounter Discriminatory, Humiliating Procedures -Gaurav Vivek Bhatnagar

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published Published on Jul 5, 2016   modified Modified on Jul 5, 2016
-TheWire.in

Married women are required to submit a marriage certificate or affidavit at the time of passport creation or renewal, though these documents are not demanded of married men.

New Delhi:
Despite senior BJP leader Sushma Swaraj being at the helm in the Ministry of External Affairs, women passport applicants continue to face discrimination and harassment at regional passport offices and seva kendras across the country.

Women applying for passports are finding that even after the introduction of Aadhaar cards – which establish an individual’s identity – getting a passport made, renewed or re-issued often involves them being asked to provide documents establishing their spouse’s or parents’ identity, or to submit additional documents if there is a change in their marital status.

Much of this harassment, trauma and delay has to do with the demand for unnecessary documentation built into the system of creating new passports and renewing old ones.

In the case of women, passport offices usually demand that once they get married they have to get the names of their husbands added to their passports – even though there is no real need for this. The system, it seems, continues to see a woman as someone dependent on either her father or husband.

In a recent case, an unmarried resident of Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh whose passport was first issued as a single woman, learnt to her surprise that after getting married she was required to submit a marriage certificate or an affidavit proving her status even though she merely wanted to get her old passport renewed.

“This is a clear case of discrimination against women. By the same logic, even men should be asked for these marriage certificates or affidavits when they go for renewals of their passports after marriage, but that is not the case,” she said, adding that when her husband got his new passport made a couple of years ago, he was not asked for these certificates.

In fact, an Internet search produces many examples of women – especially those going through a separation or those who have been deserted by their spouse – who found it extremely difficult to apply for a passport because of their marital status. Their spouses are either non-cooperative in getting affidavits made or are simply not present to accompany them to the passport office for verification.

That the passport authorities and the external affairs ministry need to be more aware and forthcoming in dealing with the problems faced by applicants also becomes evident when one sees the nature of queries people people put on social counselling sites, and the staid questions which find a place in the FAQs column on the government’s passportindia website.

Various lawyers’ forum are continuously advising people on how to overcome problems linked to passport applications, for both men and women. So be it the case of a man who got divorced and wanted to have his wife’s name removed from his passport or the query posed by a man about his mother facing difficulty in getting her passport because her husband had deserted her 30 years ago and she was unable to produce him at the passport office for proof, problems are aplenty.

Though courts have often passed orders in favour of women, these orders are seldom reflected on government websites or in the answers passport officials give to queries. Decisions like the order of a Kerala court that a deserted woman does not need her husband’s consent for getting child’s passport made and the recent Delhi high court ruling that a single mother can apply for her child’s passport need to be given wider publicity, lawyers say.

The passport office’s gender discrimination and harassment becomes more painful and obvious in the case of divorcees. Even if there is no need for change of name in their passports, divorcees seeking passport renewals or a new passport are required to produce original court orders – referred to as “divorce deeds” by passport officials.

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TheWire.in, 4 July, 2016, http://thewire.in/48611/passport-procedures-discriminatory-humiliating-especially-women/


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