General Department of Identification

My partner had no ID since birth, wasn't in any family book, is an orphan and is from way up near the border of Thailand. We ended up paying a fixer a total of 400 bucks to get her in a family book, and get her an ID card. It still took months. Many locals I mentioned it to said, ah, 100 bucks is all it takes. But, really I don't know. Its done now. Wasn't that expensive really, and took no effort on our part.

Just an aside, I realise it's not quite relevant to the Op.

Freightdog wrote: ↑Sat Jun 18, 2022 5:10 pm

FrankReynolds wrote: ↑Sat Jun 18, 2022 2:02 pm
Just an aside, I realise it's not quite relevant to the Op.

On the contrary, it’s totally relevant

Now you know it can be done, and relatively cheaply, keep in mind that fixers fees and tea money apparently go up sharply when a barang is in the picture and funding the project. Maybe it's best to stay in the background even though you might be tempted to be hands-on just for the experience of the process.

Doc67 wrote:

Freightdog wrote: ↑Sat Jun 18, 2022 5:10 pm

FrankReynolds wrote: ↑Sat Jun 18, 2022 2:02 pm
Just an aside, I realise it's not quite relevant to the Op.

On the contrary, it’s totally relevant

Now you know it can be done, and relatively cheaply, keep in mind that fixers fees and tea money apparently go up sharply when a barang is in the picture and funding the project. Maybe it's best to stay in the background even though you might be tempted to be hands-on just for the experience of the process.

OK, glad I could be useful. In all honesty the fixer asked for 350 first off, then an extra 50 later after we complained that it was taking so long, sometime before KNY. 4 months had passed. So much for speedy service. By this time we had no choice but to cough up another 50. Anyway, we were given a number to call on an official looking slip of paper. The number picked up only once, and told us to wait. It was being processed. The number never ever picked up a second time, despite calling from different numbers. We were giving up the idea of ever receiving it. Anyway, eventually we got a call saying come and get it. It took about 4.5 months.
Every Cambodian I've mentioned it to since has said, no, it's every Cambodian's right to an ID card. 100 bucks max.
But yeah, she's now got a new family name (the lady that raised her, rather than her biological father's name, who left for Thailand after her mum passed away.) she officially exists.

I do not see what the problem is other than an ignorance of multiple parties as to how to go about rectifying this situation.

Agreed, the lack of any formal documentation is an impediment that will slow the process of official recognition down but it in no way prevents it. Cambodia has, unfortunately, many such similar cases.

Cambodia has for some years now been building and refining its national population data base both at District and Province level and at the National Level.

Here is an actual example of a close friend of mine who, unfortunately, died in February of this year. As such, no harm is done in telling her story to an open forum such as this.

Let's just call her TSK, which represent the first letter of each of her names.

TSK was the sole surviving member of her extended family and work group all put to death in, quite literally the closing hours of the Khmer Rouge Regime. She, as an infant, with her hands bound behind her back was "put to death" by a strong blow to her head by a blunt instrument and fell unconscious in to the killing field body pit only to be partly covered by the bodies of others also put to death at that time. However, TSK regains consciousness many hours later but, two medical facts come together to save her life. Firstly, the skull of a very young child is somewhat pliable so the blow to her head certainly knocked her out and dented her skull but did not, of itself, kill her. Secondly, while lying in the body pit, the victims were also slashed by a blade of some sort, which in TSK's case slashed her arm but missed her artery. Long story short, she regains consciousness and eventually wriggles out of the killing fields body pit that night, as a child of circa between 4 and 5 years old, and is found by an older woman several days later who takes her in and provided food and shelter for some years.

Fast forward many years, TSK finds it increasingly difficult to get work without one of the old paper-based Cambodian ID Cards. Worse still, she was offered a job but required one of the then three year validity Cambodian passports. Again undaunted she applied to several District Offices where she had spent parts of her life to date for the issue of a family book in her own right as an orphan. Eventually, based on oral evidence of persons who had known her as she grew up, a Family Book, with her as the sole entry, was drawn up for her and with this she was then issued one of the very early photo ID Cards with a notional assumed date of birth. With these two documents she was able to get her first passport, albeit only valid at that time for a maximum of three years. Interestingly, she was able to get new passports over time including one of the present series valid for 10 years, and much to my amusement each of her passports had a different date of birth for her. However, her most recent passport date of birth was the one now recorded on the Cambodian National Data Base and became her official date of birth henceforth even though she never had any birth records or even knew her date of birth.

So, in summery, while time consuming, it is possible to work through such a bureaucratic mess and get a successful outcome.

I know TSKs story very well indeed as she worked with me and for me for very many years and I was the one paying for her various passports.

Best regards. OML