![Staff camp, Dhaka. There are about 300,000 members of the Urdu-speaking community living in camps “for stranded Pakistanis](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20140912135052im_/http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2014/8/5/1407240277611/8c6a1f90-db04-4974-92c4-fa37f4bbb666-620x413.jpeg)
![Geneva camp, Dhaka. Many ancestors of the Urdu-speaking minority came from Bihar, India, during the partition in 1947. The camps’ residents are referred to as Bihari, which is a loaded term in Bangladesh. Some trace their ancestry back not to Bihar, but to other regions in India and present-day Pakistan.](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20140912135052im_/http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2014/8/5/1407240388512/86fb3bff-94b2-4df6-bed0-7816862d7018-620x413.jpeg)
![Geneva Camp Dhaka. In many of the ‘Bihari' camps in Dhaka, you experience the sensation that the floor may simply crumble under your feet any moment. Gaps in the walls and under the stairways expose rusted structural steel and rotting concrete. Electrical lines hang in webs above the hallways and are perilously frayed. A young resident explains that when stones fall, families pool money to purchase wet cement to simply patch the spot.](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20140912135052im_/http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2014/8/5/1407240630168/1090d16e-4535-4f19-983e-adb97d4b1328-620x413.jpeg)
![Geneva Camp, Dhaka. Because they are Muslim, do not look physically different from mainstream Bangladeshis, and those who go to school are taught in Bengali, many Biharis are increasingly able to “pass” as mainstream Bangladeshis. Passing allows them access to housing and services like education – and gives them a better shot at acquiring citizenship documents. But for Urdu speakers,](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20140912135052im_/http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2014/8/5/1407240717170/3951dac9-7d75-485c-b0a9-32022f793b52-620x413.jpeg)
![Mymensingh camp, Dhaka. Urdu speakers have suffered discrimination and extreme poverty ever since the country’s war of liberation. Despite a law introduced in 2008 that guarantees citizenship for Bihari refugees, they face serious obstacles to obtaining citizenship documents like passports and birth certificates.](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20140912135052im_/http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2014/8/5/1407240776299/3d9e7534-673e-4c3c-876a-eedf38e77c79-620x413.jpeg)
![Mymensingh Bihari Camp, Bangladesh. The conditions of the camp in Mymensingh are dire. Houses are separated by two-foot wide passageways shared by camp residents, goats and chickens. Houses are tiny, usually less than eight by eight feet, and cram in entire families - often more than ten people. Inside, residents loft their beds to make space for pots and pans and other essential possessions on the floor underneath. When it rains, the entire camp floods, public toilets included.](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20140912135052im_/http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2014/8/5/1407253472849/544d4e3b-0f65-4123-a3dc-64e4e011b9ad-620x413.jpeg)
![In 2013, the international legal empowerment organisation Namati partnered with local rights group Council on Minorities to provide services to people seeking citizenship documents – by training a corps of local paralegals or](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20140912135052im_/http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2014/8/5/1407253666328/192f2772-f28c-4a0a-acd0-180b3c9e8905-620x413.jpeg)
![Nahid Parvin, a paralegal working for her Urdu-speaking community in Dhaka. Being a paralegal has brought change in Nahid’s life. Although she is young, and a woman, she says since becoming a paralegal she has experienced a lot of respect from her community. “Everyone says ‘salam’, and they call me Madame.” She says she feels inspired to train as a social worker, to continue doing development work.](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20140912135052im_/http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2014/8/5/1407254084350/f4ca114c-463f-4268-92a7-525fabf92042-620x413.jpeg)
![Nahid Parvin, a 20-year old from the Bihari community trained in basic law and mediation, and works as a grassroots advocate helping people to apply for ID cards, birth certificates and passports that some local government officials resent giving to Urdu-speakers. Nahid recalls discrimination when she was growing up:](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20140912135052im_/http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2014/8/5/1407253740638/07fda776-d724-4866-82ee-1a253a1775f8-620x413.jpeg)
![For women from the Urdu-speaking camp community, the prospect of traveling by foot and public transportation to a City Corporation office, dealing with officials and exchanging money there, is intimidating. In general Urdu-speaking women who live in the camps leave even less frequently than men. The whole community faces regular rejection or requests for bribes when applying for identity documents. A Bangladeshi passport provides the opportunity to work in the Arabian Gulf and send back remittances like much of Bangladesh’s Bengali-speaking population.](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20140912135052im_/http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2014/8/5/1407253811575/d17b089f-3dda-42b4-8faa-7d20001c3fe8-620x413.jpeg)
![Nahid Parvin, a paralegal, leads a group of women to a City Corporation office to apply for identity documents. Namati collects data on all of the applications it makes so it can identify bottlenecks in the system, cases of discrimination and so make policy recommendations to the Government of Bangladesh. Parvin’s work has the potential to benefit up to 300,000 people who struggle to claim their identity rights in Bangladesh.](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20140912135052im_/http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2014/8/5/1407253863540/8d38c2d5-139a-4e4a-9241-cbbf1598b97f-620x413.jpeg)
![At a City Corporation Office, Dhaka, Bangladesh, applying for identity cards. In some areas, a bad seed in a particular office means the majority of Urdu-speakers’ cases in that area are rejected. In other areas, cases are starting to move through more dependably. Attitudinal shift is the ultimate goal. Anyone younger than their mid-Forties in the camps was not even born at the formation of Bangladesh. They are interested in belonging to the only country they have ever known.](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20140912135052im_/http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2014/8/5/1407253941830/fa850c87-9c8f-445c-965d-762e46c61692-620x413.jpeg)
![Files in the City Corporation Office, Dhaka, Bangladesh. By tracking cases Namati and Council on Minorities already has better data than the Government on when and where Urdu-speakers suffer discrimination and delays in receiving citizenship documents.](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20140912135052im_/http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2014/8/5/1407253991547/92d24959-c18d-4e98-baa6-11fbfb439ed6-620x413.jpeg)
![Nahid Parvin walks with Farzana Naz, a young mother from the Urdu-speaking minority in Bangladesh. Farzana has applied for a passport so she can take a job as a domestic worker in Saudi Arabia to support her daughters through the rest of their schooling. Nahid is helping with her case.](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20140912135052im_/http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2014/8/5/1407254036023/ef9a27eb-1180-4343-8f47-07c970020fbe-620x413.jpeg)
Bangladesh’s Urdu-speaking minority community, sometimes known as Biharis, are consigned to live in camps for ‘stranded Pakistanis’ that were set up in 1971, during the establishment of the Bangladeshi state, even though they have no roots in modern Pakistan. They often live in dire conditions, facing discrimination from mainstream society. Legal aid NGO Namati is trying to help them gain access to citizenship
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