by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Who do you entrust your data to? A private individual or some organization – no scrutiny or oversight as to how, aside from putting together the passport, your information is being used, and for what other purposes.
After all you are required to send in a photocopy of your own national passport. This is, in fact, a felony in many jurisdiction and countries around the globe.
There are, at present, at least three (3) individuals and organizations playing passport office. Would you trust this? I would not. Especially as this useless passport will cost around $100 each.
If this Roma Passport would be to give those Rom who do not have an official citizenship – and there are many of them – then I would welcome this idea, to a great extent at least – but as you are required to send in a photocopy of a passport that you already got, which means you have citizenship in this or that country, why would anyone want a document (and pay around $100 for such a toy) that is not going to be accepted at any time soon, if ever, by the Gadje border agencies, and other agencies.
For those Rom, and there are thousands of them, who do not have identity papers and thus are stateless such a document, if accepted by the powers-that-be, would make sense but otherwise it is just an expensive gimmick, expensive on several levels. And, the way it is, at present, that is all that it is. Nothing but a harebrained scheme, probably intended to make money for some.
We saw something something similar to this, I would suggest, years ago when Macedonian Roma refugees in Germany were promised UN passports, so-walled “white passports”, by a certain organization in Germany, against payment of 200 DM each, which never, obviously, materialized, as they could not. Many of the “victims”, alas, believed in those promises of those passports and that those would give them the right to stay in Germany and paid the money. They did not even believe people, Rom, from other organizations, who told them that this was a scam.
How many Rom will believe the story of those Roma Passports, whether issued by the IRU (or whoever else), as being legitimate identification and travel documents (which they are not and will and, with 99% certainty, never will be and become)? Quite a lot of those that are undocumented and thus they will sacrifice a lot to buy such a passport (if they can) which may get them into more trouble than not having papers at all. It is time to put an end to those scam merchants.
2024 © Michael Smith / O NEVO DROM
