Before passports became standardized in 1920 by the League of Nations, border restrictions were not so staunch globally. The first version of the passport was documentation that allowed an individual to pass through a gate or “porte” of a city. The documents allowed the holder a free of charge entry into the region. During World War I, countries imposed strict border controls to stop the entry of enemies and keep skilled men within their borders.
The notion that a passport does not hold much importance outside the airport is stemmed from passport privilege. Stephen Klimczuk-Massion, Quondam Fellow of Oxford University’s Saïd Business School, said,
“It’s an understatement to say that we are living through a particularly turbulent time worldwide, with the pandemic still casting a long shadow and newer developments such as war, inflation, political instability and incidents of violence increasingly dominating the headlines. In this context, a passport is more than ever a calling card, which, depending on which passport you carry and where you are going, will have an impact on the kind of welcome you will receive, where you can go, and how safe you will be when you get there. Now more than ever, it’s a mistake to think of a passport as merely a travel document that allows you to get from A to B. The relative strength or weakness of a particular national passport directly affects the quality of life for the passport holder and may even be a matter of life and death in some circumstances.”
A person carrying a Pakistani passport knows the woes of a “weak passport”, including obstacles and rejections when obtaining visas to most countries of the world, job, education, and healthcare inequities, societal racism, and overall advancement in the world. Due to the weak status of the passport, Pakistani citizens applying for even a visit visa are required to submit multiple proofs of financial stability, complete information about their place of stay, evidence of some kind to show that they will return, and more. Even if one manages to acquire a visa, they are stopped multiple times and go through rigorous searches at an airport.
The utter dejection and despair a Pakistani faces when applying for a visa was talked about by Mehr Muhammad Adeel Riaz, a Pakistani physician, when his visa application was rejected which he needed to attend the World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva. He said,
“Passport privilege is real… What is a swift walk for a privileged white kid with an EU passport is a marathon with a broken road and hurdles for a brown kid with a Pakistani passport… When youth from high-income countries are jumping from plane to plane to attend global health meetings, research workshops & whatnot, we as global South youth cannot even think about that. As Pakistani, we have to plan months in advance. And there is no guarantee that we will get a visa. Our voices and our presence don’t seem to matter.”
According to Henley Passport Index 2022, Pakistan has the fourth weakest passport out of 163 independent states and territories that the company keeps track of. On the list, the country was in the 109th position and its citizens can obtain visa-free or visa on arrival entry to 32 countries. As per Henley Passport Index, Pakistan has been ranked in the last five spots since 2010.
Sarah Nicklin, Group Head of Public Relations at Henley & Partners, provided insights about the ranking systems of different passports. She said,
“What we have observed is that commonalities in history and economic status, shared foreign policy goals, and reciprocity come into play, but security, trade, and political alliances are also influential.” She further added, “There are many countries that have wholesale bans on nationals of specific countries entering their borders or their own nationals entering the borders of specific countries because of collapsed diplomatic relations. Another major driver is the relative importance placed on tourism by a government, as is the case in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. This will see countries being very proactive about liberalising their internal visa policies. We’re even starting to see such a trend in China, which recently opened its Hainan province to visitors of 59 countries.”
It has been observed that peaceful countries tend to have more powerful passports. According to Global Peace Index 2022, Pakistan scored poorly in terrorism impact and violent demonstrations with increasing military expenditure relative to its GDP. Imad Zafar, a political commentator, offered another reason for the worsening status of the Pakistani passport,
“In Pakistan, though, those who pull the strings from behind use protests and manufactured chaos to weaken the elected governments. Myanmar is an example where the recent martial law has resulted in new sanctions. Unless democracy is given a chance in Pakistan, political disorder will continue to bring chaos, extremism, and human rights violations – and that will only further discredit the image of the green passport.”
If the deteriorating global image of Pakistan is to be looked at, there seems to be a myriad of reasons behind it. Till the 1970s, Pakistan practiced a strict passport policy but it was relaxed to grant citizenship to Afghan refugees. Many believe that since then, Pakistanis have illegally migrated to other countries, which has tarnished the Pakistani image. Moreover, the many reports of Pakistani nationals committing crimes in foreign countries just add to the aggravation towards the green passport. There was a time that Pakistani immigrants seeking jobs were respected but due to the rise in fake universities, fake degrees, and fake professional licenses, the world is wary of Pakistanis and most countries have tightened their visa policies for them.
The conundrum of Pakistanis is that they wish to escape the country in order to live a better life but their weak passports prohibit them, and the causes behind the condition of the green passport are what push them to want to leave. With every passing year, political turmoil, inflation, security, and living conditions worsen hence why the Pakistani passport’s global ranking is just above war-torn countries of Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq.
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