Change stance on citizenship for children born overseas, govt urged

 

Suhakam’s children’s commissioner Noor Aziah Mohd Awal says the policy is clearly discrimination against women.

PETALING JAYA: The Human Rights Commission of Malaysia’s (Suhakam) children’s commissioner has slammed Deputy Home Minister Ismail Mohamed Said for citing national security concerns as to why children born abroad to Malaysian women married to foreign spouses cannot be conferred automatic citizenship.

Noor Aziah Mohd Awal told FMT that the deputy minister’s remarks were against a woman’s right to get married and start a family.

“I am very disappointed with the answer in Parliament. What security issues are they talking about?” she asked.

“They’re basically saying a woman should not marry a foreigner because if she does, she needs to come home to give birth to ensure her child is granted Malaysian citizenship.

“This is clearly discrimination against women. Malaysian men with foreign spouses are able to pass down citizenship to their children, but not our women. It is unfair,” she said.

Yesterday, Ismail told the Dewan Rakyat that if a Malaysian woman married a foreigner, irrespective of whether the marriage was proper and recognised, the child born abroad would not be automatically granted citizenship.

“This is to avoid the child possessing dual citizenship, and in other countries, the child’s citizenship will follow that of the father,” he said in answering a question raised by Sekijang MP Natrah Ismail.

Noor Aziah urged the home ministry to consider tabling an amendment to the Federal Constitution to allow children of Malaysians, irrespective of where they were born, to become citizens automatically.

Foreign Spouses Support Group (FSSG) co-founder Bina Ramanand clarified that the question raised by Natrah was actually based on a draft sent by a group of Malaysian mothers who had been waiting for their children’s citizenship for years.

“They wanted to know why it takes Malaysian women so long to obtain citizenship for their children born overseas, when the process takes less than three months for Malaysian men.

“These mothers were shocked to hear the response by the deputy home minister,” she told FMT, asking why the dual-citizenship excuse was only applicable to Malaysian mothers.

FSSG programme officer Melinda Anne Sharlini pointed out that Malaysia was one of 25 countries in the world that did not provide gender-equal rights to confer citizenship on children.

She added that many pregnant women risked their lives to travel back to Malaysia just to secure their children’s citizenship as a result of the restrictive policies.

Those who did not, she said, had been waiting for their applications to be approved for over six years, with the situation exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic and international travel restrictions.

Segambut MP Hannah Yeoh.

Meanwhile, former deputy women, family and community development minister Hannah Yeoh said the current policy reduced the option for Malaysian women who sought divorces, protection or relief, as it “assumed the presence of the father figure in a happy family setting”.

However, she said this was far from the reality faced by many Malaysian women, who were often stuck in limbo as their children did not have citizenship in their homeland.

“Malaysian women bring equal contribution to our economy and social development and they ought to be treated like their male counterparts,” she said in a statement.

“Let me remind the home ministry that what is a greater threat to national security is corruption within their enforcement system, as seen in the recent arrest of immigration and police officers. Innocent children cannot and will not be a danger to our nation.” - FMT