Many refugees lost their documents while fleeing from conflict areas. The lack of awareness on essential documents and documentation procedures has disempowered them to be unconscious of essential documents such as birth, marriage and death certificates. Therefore, the vast majority has not obtained the documents during their life in exile. From the past experiences, it is learnt that the majority among the refugees return to Sri Lanka without securing complete sets of their essential documents including consular birth certificates and Sri Lankan citizenship. The non-availability of essential documents become a big obstacle for them to enjoy basic rights as citizens and claim the rights and entitlements including NIC, employment, land, housing and other resettlement benefits. Students need consular birth certificates to attend G.C.E (O/L) and G.C.E (A/L) examinations and pursue university admissions and participate in the state and regional level competitions.

In addition, there is a need to obtain equivalent certificates for the academic degrees earned from India. Refugee returnee graduates found it very difficult to obtain equivalency for Polytechnic Courses and Para Medical courses earned from India as this process is a money and time consuming process and which doesn’t always yield successful results.