Teny stated that her ministry is committed to accelerating the accessibility of documents needed to establish each person’s citizenship and the qualification for the rights.

By James Chatim

South Sudan’s Interior Minister Angelina Teny has assured that every national will have access to the required documents as provided by the constitution.

The Minister Teny made the remarks during the launch of the Nationality Documentation and Mitigation of the Risk of Statelessness in South Sudan workshop on Monday in Juba.

Teny stated that her ministry is committed to accelerating the accessibility of documents needed to establish each person’s citizenship and the qualification for the rights.

The Interior Minister added that the Directorate for Civil Registry and Immigration is planning to introduce the registry of birth and death to create accurate and timely records of all birth, death and civil data.

“We are committing to ensuring that every citizen in this country must receive some kind of a documentation. And now, the Directorate for Civil Registry and Immigration is working very hard, not only on providing the national certificates, but we are also looking at the registry of birth and death which was in place long ago as a system,” Teny stated.

However, the Directorate for Civil Registry and Immigration is facing challenges as most of the people in South Sudan are born in the rural areas and not reachable easily.

“But now, we have issues that the majority of our citizens are in rural setting and they are not reachable. So, people born in towns of course would have records, but the system is not integrated. Through this, we will ensure that we sought out and avoid the issues of statelessness,” the Minister said.

The duties for the Directorate of Civil Registry and Immigration is to maintain the register of South Sudanese nationals; issue nationalities and certificates either by birth or naturalization and perform other functions under the law of South Sudan or delegated by the Minister.

The Nationality Documentation and Mitigation of the Risk of Statelessness in South Sudan workshop was under the Theme: “Nationality is everybody’s right.” The event is set to proceed for five days, from Monday, October 7 to October