NEVER in my wildest imagination had I thought that I would struggle to get a visa to enter a foreign country because of being a resident of Sukkur, the city of my birth. But it did happen recently, and the country in question was the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

I have spent all my life in Karachi and have qualified from one of the most prestigious institutions of Pakistan. I have been working for the last three years with a large technology-oriented multinational company (MNC) based in the UAE, and have been regularly visiting their head office to collaborate on various strategic initiatives and other agenda points. It gives ample visibility and growth from a career perspective since the entire leadership sits within the head office in the UAE.

Recently, the UAE government has started screening all visa applications for the city of birth of the applicants. It sounds rather strange to reject visa to someone based purely on the place of birth instead of any risk assessment. Apparently, the UAE government is rejecting visas due to its misconception that people from the ‘black-listed’ cities visit the country for beggary purposes.

The Pakistani government should assist the UAE in solving this problem. Someone should take up the matter with the UAE government or its embassy, and devise a detailed process to issue visas to genuine people and professionals in order to to ensure that the people do not suffer bottlenecks in their career growth.

Atiq ur Rehman
Karachi

Published in Dawn, November 11th, 2024