Give us two-thirds to end unilateral conversion, Najib tells women

Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak urged women to give BN to rule with two-thirds majority if they would like to see the proposed Section 88A introduced in the Law Reform (Marriage and Divorce) Act (LRA).

Section 88A, which would have ended unilateral child conversion, was dropped from the amendments to the LRA that was passed in the last Parliament sitting.

“There are things I’d like to do, 88A and all that, but we need a two-thirds majority (in Parliament) to change the constitution… but we don’t have that.

“What we want to do is one thing, what we can do is another.

“But if women give us a two-thirds majority (in the next general election), that’s a different story,” Najib said at a Transformasi Nasional 2050 (TN50) dialogue session with about 1,000 women in Kuala Lumpur today, in conjunction with National Women's Day.

Ruling coalition BN, which he leads, has 134 lawmakers in the 222-seat Dewan Rakyat - 14 seats shy of a two-thirds majority.

Najib was responding to a participant who had urged the government to turn the proposed Section 88A into law and end unilateral child conversion.

The proposed Section 88A(1) states that "Where a party to a marriage has converted to Islam, the religion of any child of the marriage shall remain as the religion of the parties to the marriage prior to the conversion, except where both parties to the marriage agree to a conversion of the child to Islam, subject always to the wishes of the child where he or she has attained the age of eighteen years."

The above section was said to be in violation of Article 12(4) of the Federal Constitution, which states "the religion of a person under the age of eighteen years shall be decided by his parent or guardian".

Some view the word 'parent' in this clause as singular, meaning only one parent's decision is necessary when deciding a child's religion.

Last month, Tourism and Culture Minister Nazri Abdul Aziz said the government refused to seek support from across the political divide for the bill as it did not want to risk a possible vote of no-confidence against BN.

This is despite DAP MPs vowing to support any constitutional amendment necessary to put an end to unilateral conversion. - Mkini