KUALA LUMPUR, June 30 — Being stateless in Malaysia is like being “invisible” as Malaysian authorities do not even collect official data on how many such people are...
KUALA LUMPUR, June 30 — Being stateless in Malaysia is like being “invisible” as Malaysian authorities do not even collect official data on how many such people are here.
Lawyer Jasmine Wong, who has represented stateless clients and parents of stateless children in court, said those who become stateless in Malaysia are “largely due to gender inequality in our laws and the lack of legal identification documents such as birth certificates or marriage certificates from their parents”.
Lawyer Jasmine Wong said that even if the child’s birth is registered and he/she has a birth certificate, the National Registration Department can still label him/her as non-Malaysian. — Picture courtesy of Jasmine Wong Refugees generally refers to those who fled their country of origin due to conflict or persecution, while migrants are generally foreigners or citizens of another country who moved to Malaysia to live and work.
For Rohingya refugees who are already stateless before coming to Malaysia due to a possible combination of laws, “policy, racism, misplaced nationalism, xenophobia or conflict”, Sharmila said Malaysia cannot be expected to find a solution on its own and that there needs to be at least an Asean or international response to their statelessness.
Child rights activist Datuk Hartini Zainudin, co-founder of Yayasan Chow Kit , said she has come across thousands of stateless cases in the course of her work, and added that stateless children have been wrongly viewed and statelessness is not something that they chose. Hartini said the impact of being stateless — which she described as akin to being “invisible” — is “horrific”, noting as a guardian to stateless children with disabilities that they are not able to even get access to rehabilitation programmes.
Last Friday, the Home Ministry in a briefing told civil society organisations of its plans to make changes to citizenship rules in the Federal Constitution, including to finally enable Malaysian mothers to pass on their citizenship to their overseas-born children, just as Malaysian fathers are already able to do.over the government’s other proposed amendments to the Federal Constitution to remove existing constitutional protections that were meant to prevent children from becoming stateless.
“It has benefited various categories of impacted children such as children separated from parents with no proof of parentage, children born out of wedlock, adopted children, and children who were born to stateless parents,” she said. “This proposal will effectively subject the foundlings and abandoned children to the absolute discretion of the Home Minister,” she said.
“Think you need to look at root causes. Go promote sex education. And stop baby dumping. The babies are foundlings,” she said. Police recorded 789 babies being dumped in Malaysia from 2015 to 2021. “That’s the importance of Section 1. You remove Section 1, which is one of the proposed amendments, the children have nothing. No protection. No guarantee of citizenship.
“The proposed amendments reveal a lack of foresight and seem rather myopic. Let us not, by our lack of knowledge and understanding, create serious economic problems and social ills in our society and nation at large.” For stateless children denied access to formal education, they may end up facing literacy issues and being low-skilled and having to join the informal work sector which may expose them to being abused, violated and exploited.
Apart from helping Malaysian mothers with overseas-born children, Wong said the government should not rush into amending the other citizenship provisions in the Federal Constitution which will affect childhood statelessness without seeking further feedback and consultation with all relevant stakeholders.
“When they do a preliminary check of the applicant’s documents and are of the view that the applicants have insufficient documents, they will refuse to give the application forms to the applicants. So essentially, the applicants are denied their right to even submit and have their application considered,” she said.
“This does not mean giving citizenship to all and sundry; but to ensure that children within our borders have safeguards and can obtain citizenship if they have none,” she said. Currently Section 1 and Section 1 of Part II of the Second Schedule of the Federal Constitution states that every person born outside Malaysia to a Malaysian “father” will be a Malaysian by operation of law.
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