By T\u0161oeu Petlane<\/p>\n
National identity, a sense of belonging and the right to citizenship are fundamental human rights. In South Africa last week, in addition to celebrating the 95th birthday of Africa\u2019s living legend, Nelson Mandela, the government also started rolling out \u201csmart\u201d national identity documents (IDs). These secure, tamper-resistant documents were issued to, among others, senior political activists who were at the forefront of the struggle against Apartheid. It has also been hailed as another step on the way to consolidating inclusive and non-racial citizenship \u2013 in contrast, for example, to apartheid-era documents that limited the movement and employment of many in this country.<\/p>\n
Similarly, this month Lesotho started issuing comparable national IDs that would consolidate all important information about its citizens in one secure document. This is aimed at cleaning the national citizen database and ensuring that abuse of the country\u2019s official documents (mainly in the form of passports) ends.<\/p>\n