Civil society urges reform on nationality laws

Malaysian CSOs have urged the government to reform gender-discriminatory provisions in nationality laws to ensure citizens regardless of gender have equal rights to pass on their nationality to their children and spouses.

Towards this, some 20 CSOs gathered for the two-day National Consultation on Achieving Equal Nationality Rights for Women and Men conference.

The organisations included the Foreign Spouses Support Group, the Bar Council, the Joint Action Group for Gender Equality, the National Council of Women's Organisations and the Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights, among others.

"Malaysia's nationality law results in it being one of only 25 countries that deny women the right to confer nationality on their children on an equal basis with men.

"It is also one of three countries that denies men equal rights in conferring nationality on their children who are born out of wedlock," Foreign Spouses Support Group coordinator Bina Ramanand said at a press conference today.

Bina said that Malaysian women are also denied equal rights as men to confer nationality on their spouses.

Grant citizenship call

The CSOs will forward a list of 13 recommendations to the government at Parliament tomorrow, which includes upholding the right of all Malaysian citizens to confer their nationality on their children equally – regardless of gender, marital status and the child's place of birth.

This, Bina said, would allow children to be granted citizenship as long as one of his or her parents is a Malaysian citizen.

It is learned the list of recommendations will be submitted with the assistance of Petaling Jaya MP Maria Chin Abdullah.

The groups also urged the government to grant citizenship to all Malaysian citizens with pending applications and establish transparent rules, guidelines and standard operating procedures in relation to citizenship applications. - Mkini