The ‘Pillar’ of Inclusion: How Legal Identity & (Its Lack Thereof) Shapes Access to Aid, Employment, and Financial Transactions in Afghanistan
“ A person without a citizenship tazkira is uncredited and anonymous, their country and living place is not clear, and they cannot use the facilities, services, and opportunities where they live.”
By Samuel Hall Team
I n Afghanistan, access to identification has become more important since the fall of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GoIRA) in August 2021, given the deteriorating humanitarian crisis.
Since then, however, as many Afghans have fallen into poverty, they are unable to pay for these essential documents — this means that they cannot get the documentation required to access crucial services, remittances, loans, and formal employment.
Afghanistan’s most crucial identification document is the Tazkira and/or an e-Tazkira. This blog shows its vital link to employment, banking services and property rights.
As Hakim*, a community leader in Herat province, explains it:
“A person without a Tazkira is unable to get a job in a factory or company, and this person cannot buy or rent lands, apartments, and cars. They cannot get other documents like a passport, marriage certificate, driving licence, and bank account card; this person cannot pick up the money transferred from abroad. Without a tazkira, a person cannot be a beneficiary of an organisation’s aid.”
The need for this Tazkira cuts across gender, age, ethnicity and displacement status. Afghan women, men and children need access to their legal identity to unlock all other rights, including their right to protection, their right to work and many other rights.
In 2022–3, Samuel Hall worked with the International Organization for Migration, UNICEF, WFP, UNHCR, and NRC as part of the Interagency Working Group on Legal Identity (TWG) to publish a research study that provides actionable recommendations to enhance the protection of all Afghans across the country.
Drawing from this study, this blog illustrates how inaccessibility to legal identity can be addressed. This follows the first blog — that explores the complexities of legal identity in Afghanistan and the potential solutions to improve identity management for Afghanistan’s citizens.
The Tazkira is a key to Access Humanitarian Assistance in Afghanistan
Possessing a Tazkira is often the gateway to receiving humanitarian assistance. When aid organisations assess needs, the distribution of Aid Cards typically hinges on this ID, through which they can adequately register the family in their database.
In theory, humanitarian actors do not exclude individuals from receiving aid or assistance. However, practical impediments — such as verifying a person’s identity — can lead humanitarian actors to prefer assisting individuals with documents over those who do not have them. In some cases, humanitarian organisations have also been shown to accept less formal forms of identification, such as vaccine cards or election cards.
Rafiullah*, a day labourer from Jalalabad, explained:
“Recently, the World Food Program conducted a survey to identify the most needed and vulnerable people for assistance, and those people who didn’t have ID cards were excluded from the survey and were not considered in the list for assistance.”
This rule also applies to other types of assistance. Helping reconstruct homes, often destroyed during fighting or floods, also requires proper documentation. Such situations could cause significant harm to returnees who have fled their homes following climatic or conflict-related events.
Its absence Impedes Aid for Vulnerable Afghan Groups
While in some instances, families have been able to receive aid without disposing of proper documentation, our research shows that lacking documentation worsens the situation of already vulnerable groups — such as women, children, adolescents, persons with disability, returnees, internally displaced persons (IDPs), minorities, and nomadic and stateless groups.
In situations where the male family head is absent, birth certificates of children, coupled with a copy of the head’s Tazkira, can be an alternative for verification, especially when vouched for by community leaders. But typically, NGOs prefer original documents. With many men having left Afghanistan post-August 2021, this creates a challenge for the women left behind; the de facto heads of the household who often lack a tazkira as well as widows.
Azero*,from Nangarhar province, one woman shared her distressing experience, stating,
“A female neighbour of ours went to the IDs distribution centre alone, and they became upset because she wasn’t accompanied by a Mahram (male companion) as he had passed away. Another woman told them that her husband was sick, but they insisted she must bring him in person for them to issue the ID. Otherwise, they said there would be no ID for her.”
Given the low proportion of identification possession, for women and children, especially in rural areas, certain families remain deprived of aid when the only member with documentation is not around. In such cases, community leaders can often vouch for families whose documentation is incomplete and help verify the identity of the people concerned.
- The Right to Work: No ID, No (Formal) Employment
Beyond aid, formal employment too often requires adequate forms of identification, such as Tazkiras.
While most informal jobs, such as agricultural or housework, do not require identification and are often based on kinship and communal ties, certain interviews have highlighted exceptions. Many employers still want to know who is working for them and thus require identification, especially in accidents and emergencies.
Abdullah* from Balkh even claimed not to employ women in his carpet weaving centre, as it could prevent the payment from the bank.
“We need the Tazkira number to register the women in our carpet weaving centre so that they can receive their salary through the bank. After all, the bank will pay them according to the Tazkira number.”
With the current restrictions on women’s work, some think they don’t need IDs as much as men. However, these limitations on women’s rights make it even more vital for them to have proper legal identification.
2. Navigating Banking and Identity for Remittances in Afghanistan
In the realm of remittances, despite some changes like withdrawal limits and a pause on foreign banking due to sanctions, Afghanistan’s banking rules are mostly the same as before. The system strictly needs customers to prove their identity through the KYC (Know Your Customer) process. So, for banking tasks like opening an account or transferring money, Afghans need at least a Tazkira.
Official ID is required for remittances, too — at least those sent through official channels, such as formal currency exchange bureaus or banks. People can only collect their money if proper identification is presented. Mahmoud*, a 42-year-old man from Balkh, narrated,
“Someone had transferred money for another individual under me through a money exchange. I went to the market, where they took a copy of my Tazkira and noted its specifications. Next, they gave me the money so I couldn’t have done it without my Tazkira.”
In the context of women being left behind, often reliant on family members who have migrated abroad for work, having a Tazkira becomes paramount. However, Afghanistan predominantly relies on the ‘Hawala system,’ an informal network of brokers, for money transfers instead of official banking channels. While this system operated in a legal grey area even before the Taliban’s ascent, it serves as a lifeline for individuals in Afghanistan who lack traditional financial avenues, especially migrants and those without proper IDs.
3. Documenting Ownership: The Role of Tazkira in Property, Bills and Taxes
Tazkiras are also essential for verifying house or property ownership, even in informal settings. Under the DfA, stricter ID checks are in place for renting homes due to concerns about dissent and terrorism. Moreover, in land disputes, those with proper IDs tend to have a legal advantage, and any official asset or property transaction necessitates valid identification.
Most people who own and rent a property through formal channels must pay electricity, water bills, and taxes — which require documentation. Women whose husbands still live in Afghanistan typically depend on their husbands to carry out daily tasks that require documentation.
Ali* from Herat says,
“Even when we want to get approval for an electricity metre and cable for our house or to become a beneficiary of NGOs aid, we must have a tazkira and without a tazkira, we will not be able to exercise all our rights in a community and solve our fundamental problems or meet the needs of our family.”
IDs, including marriage or death certificates, also play a pivotal role in inheritance. While death certificates are infrequently obtained, they’re crucial for inheritance or claims — especially for unnatural deaths.
Jamiullah* from Nangarhar says,
“Afghanistan’s people are preemptive in inheritance issues. Because they don’t give inheritance rights to widows, orphans, brothers, and sisters, documents like marriage certificates, passports, and takers are significant for such cases. To give the inheritance right or prove it, tazkira and other identification documents are required.”
Unlocking Protection and Essential Services: The Way Forward
As efforts to strengthen access to legal identity and civil registration take place, there is a need, simultaneously, to ensure that Afghans are able to access aid, employment and other essential services.
There is a need to focus on:
- Integrating remittances into humanitarian policies. In the past, organisations like the UN and NGOs have successfully collaborated with mobile money platforms to transfer funds securely in Afghanistan. These approaches should be amplified further.
- Integrating community leaders and local councils in the identification of vulnerable groups.. Let them vouch more for residents’ identities to ensure aid reaches the right hands. Moreover, manuscripts maintained by community heads detail each resident’s lineage. These can be a goldmine for identity verification. If not already in place, there’s a need to create and update such records regularly.
- Integrating cash assistance and collaborating with legal offices to establish formal assistance programmes. They can also consider offering cash assistance to help individuals cover the costs of obtaining documentation.
- Easing the identification process. This includes accepting alternate, less formal IDs like birth or vaccination cards to access services. This can significantly benefit women and children and those internally displaced. Aid cards could be a game-changer for families with proper documentation.
- Finally, we close this blog with the need to facilitate more legal pathways for Afghans outside of Afghanistan — where their rights are protected and respected and their voices — especially those of women — are heard and acknowledged.
- Names changed to protect identity
