Kenya is belatedly granting citizenship to groups once deemed foreign

Identity cardsSIM IDID ID ununhcr are a big deal in Kenya. Without them you cannot marry, register to vote or get salaried jobs. Nor can you open a bank account, go to university or legally buy a card. Walking around without papers can even get you arrested, a hangover from the colonial era when many African workers needed a special pass. Though that is legally dubious, few Kenyans, especially those without documentation, dare challenge the police. “If you don’t have an , you don’t exist,” says Mustafa Mahmoud of Namati, a group that campaigns for legal rights for the poor.For most Kenyans, applying for an card is quite simple. A school leaving certificate and a copy of a parent’s will usually do. Yet some ethnic groups have still faced discrimination when applying. If your forebears migrated to Kenya during British colonial rule, you were still officially deemed foreign at independence in 1963. Generations later, long after losing touch with your ethnic homeland, for instance if it is Somalia, the government would not recognise you as a Kenyan citizen. Thousands were left in a bureaucratic limbo. The High Commissioner for Refugees () reckons that 16,800 people in Kenya are stateless. But the true number is probably far higher.