FROM PAPERWORK TO POSSIBILITY

The long road to legal status and nationality

- STORY: NATTHA KEENAPAN PHOTOS: ARUN ROISRI

Kanokwan and Kamonwan Nongyaw.

On a humid morning 22 years ago, in two hospitals an hour apart in Thailand's northern province of Chiang Mai, a miracle happened - twice.

Kanokwan Nongyaw first entered the world at Doi Saket Hospital. She weighed just 900g, small enough to fit in the crook of her father's arm. A nurse carried the fragile newborn to the baby's father, Saw Kampan, and gently asked if he wanted to keep her as she was unlikely to survive.

"I'll take care of my daughter, whatever it takes," he replied.

Hours later, after the mother Ying Nong-yaw developed complications, she was rushed to Maharaj Nakorn Chiang Mai Hospital in the city.

There, her second daughter - Kamon-wan - was delivered. She weighed 1.1kg. The twins were born in different hospitals, under different roofs, in a race against time.

They spent two months in incubators, suspended between life and loss. But they survived. They grew. They laughed. And, against the odds, they thrived.

What they did not receive, however, was something more ordinary and yet still important: a nationality.

Today, Kanokwan and Kamonwan are 22 years old. They live in Mae Tang district of Chiang Mai province with their parents, an ethnic minority who work as construction workers. By law, the twins were entitled to Thai nationality. But that bureaucratic error at birth would shadow them for more than a decade.

"The problem started with my father's documents," Kanokwan explained. "His name on our birth certificates didn't match the name on his identification card."

Over the years, her father's identification documents had changed - different names, a cancelled ID, a reissued number. What might seem like minor administrative discrepancies became seemingly insurmountable obstacles. When local officials tried to process the children's nationality, the paperwork would not align. The applications stalled.