An African Citizen passport to promote free passage within countries has been launched in Accra. It was launched by some Civil Society groups shortly after the official opening of the Ninth Assembly of the African Union Heads of States Summit. The Passport, green in colour, requiring only the bearer's name and picture, is said to be valid until member states of the African Union issued an African Passport as required to fulfill the vision of a people driven African Union and a United Africa. According to the proponents of the African Citizen's Passport, a continental government without citizenship was meaningless. The passport is to allow the bearer free passage, ability to trade, work or reside in all parts of Africa with the full rights, entitlement and responsibilities of a citizen. Mr Lamine Ndiaye of Oxfam International, one of the proponents said the first step for the United States of Africa was to give its people the right to travel across the continent freely. He said: "The only time that a national passport should be demanded is when one desires to travel outside the continent." Mr Ndiaye said in his opinion the debates were useless now and that what was needed was to make the people of Africa have a feeling of oneness, have one passport and be able to move about freely without the issue of Visa acquisition. ”If we continue to leave the integration to our governments, nothing would be achieved, but if we start the movement through the people a lot would be achieved within a short time," he said. Madam Una Kumba Thompson of the Women of Liberia Peace Network asked how the African government could be talking of a United States of Africa when the French Embassy issued visa to Kenyans travelling to Senegal and the United Kingdom Embassy issued visa to Senegalese going to Kenya. Citing the case of Ethiopia, she said Ethiopians normally gave two years visa to Americans visiting their country and only three months to Togolese on the same mission. "What we are calling for is the abolishing of visas across the continent, to allow Africans, especially women who have to move from one country to the other for trade or because of marital issues, move freely across the continent. "Women have always been at the receiving end when it came to the issue of passports and visas, with some even losing their citizenships because they had married men from other African countries. "The inhumane treatment that women go through because of the lack of passport would be a thing of the past if a common passport is used across the continent,” said Madam Thompson, also a member of the Solidarity for African Women's Rights (SOAWR). Source: GNA