Every day for about a year Tahera Hasan doggedly tagged the chairman of Nadra, Tariq Malik (@ReplyTariq) on Twitter about children in Machhar Colony. These children were born in Karachi but because their parents are Bengali-speaking, they had a lot of trouble getting the basic citizenship paperwork that would lead to a CNIC or computerized ID card.

When a child is born in Pakistan, the union council will issue a birth certificate. Under Pakistan’s law anyone born here qualifies as a citizen. The family can take that to Nadra which will issue a B-form that leads to a CNIC and a passport. The problem, however, is that Bengali-speaking families living here are discriminated against because of Pakistan’s history with East Pakistan and the war of 1971. The children born into these families in Karachi are thus ultimately rendered stateless. They cannot enroll in schools, sit their Matric exams, go to college, get jobs, open bank accounts, travel.

Tahera started working in Machhar Colony, which is one of Karachi’s largest informal settlements, about fifteen years ago. Her non-profit, Imkaan Welfare Organisation found that the children there had no place to play so she opened Khel, a recreational space for them and brought on a coach, Furqaan, to teach them gymnastics. Some of the children were so good at it that they started to compete at the city-level. But as soon as they tried to go higher, they hit a wall. Without CNICs they could not travel or often even take part in official championships.

The Imkaan legal aid team had been working on helping stateless families who qualified under Pakistan’s law for paperwork. They filed cases and petitions, blitzed the Prime Minister’s Citizens Complaint Portal, went to CM House, Islamabad, wrote letter after letter to Nadra.

Eventually one day Tahera received a call from Tariq Malik’s office. Fortunately, the chairman understood that they were just asking for Pakistan’s existing law to be implemented. Imkaan flagged cases to Nadra where a court order was perhaps taking too long to be followed or something legally allowed was not being done. And slowly, one after another, case after case was resolved.

It was therefore, much to their delight, that the children learnt on Wednesday, that they would be meeting the person who had been instrumental in ending their statelessness. Tariq Malik, the chairman of Nadra, was coming to Machhar Colony.

“It’s very cool. Very surreal also,” said Tahera Hasan. “The fact that his office reached out for this visit and we did not have to chase him for it is very heartening.”

Malik joined the children for the national anthem and met the gymnastics team. “You are our heroes,” he said to them. “I said I should meet you, and especially the four of you who were selected from Sindh for the team. I want you to go on to represent Pakistan.”

He visited the legal aid centre and chatted with the staff there. “Shanakht or identity is your fundamental basic right and you should get it. So is nationality,” he said. “We are also doing advocacy on your behalf, telling the government, that the laws should be such that babies born should get their B-form. A state that cannot count its children, cannot own its children—this is not good because the State is the Mother, riyasat maa ki tarha hoti he. So it should accept its children.”

The Nadra team told the Imkaan legal aid staff that they would collaborate so that they could resolve cases that should not be going to court. “It was heartening for the staff when he said that, ‘You are doing what we should be doing’. That was a huge acknowledgement of our work,” said Tahera.

Gymnast Sonia, who just won the medal for second best in Sindh, at a provincial championship was one of the girls who had faced the prospect of a glass ceiling. She recently received her B-form. “My dream is to compete internationally,” she said. “And then I want to become a coach!”