By Daniel Thimmayya
Published: 30th March 2015 06:00 AM
Destitute women and children display the acknowledgment of aadhar cards at a special camp in the city on Sunday
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CHENNAI: Amelia’s greatest dream has been to buy herself a bike. Like most other girls in their early 20’s, it’s a normal desire, one that she can afford after having saved every extra scrap of money she earned over the past 3 years. But that dream remained hopelessly out of reach because she had no proof of identity. At least that’s what she was told at the bike showroom. Sold into prostitution, before her eventual rescue and rehabilitation in a protection home in Chennai, today she and hundreds of trafficked women, are one step closer to breaking that shackle.
In a path-breaking initiative, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) held a special Aadhaar camp for women who had lost their pasts, orphaned or abandoned children and for the destitute with diagnosed psychiatric problems, on Sunday. Thrilled at the prospect of getting an Aadhaar Card and some form of legitimate citizenship at last, close to 500 women and children came to the camp in Perambur, through 10 NGOs. “Just doing the registration and biometrics alone took us a long time, so we will have to come back another day,” said one of the officials.
A chance meeting a member of the Planning Commission, turned into a lobbying campaign for Isabel Richardson, Executive Secretary of the Madras Christian Council for Social Service (MCCSS), “From passport to bank accounts to something as small as a driver’s licence, these women and children are often turned down like they’re invisible. We often have to run around to get paperwork done and even then they are turned down. That is why we decided to push to get them Aadhaar cards,” she said. Surprisingly, the government agreed and got to work vetting and clearing candidates fast.