Deputy Home Minister Ismail Mohamed Said has drawn flak for citing national security concerns in denying citizenship for the children of Malaysian women with foreign spouses.
In a statement today, PKR Petaling Jaya MP Maria Chin Abdullah slammed Ismail for making an ignorant and ill-thought comment and she claimed the deputy minister was insensitive to the status of Malaysian women and children.
She called on Ismail to withdraw his statement and instead come up with a proposal to amend the gender-discriminatory nationality law.
"His statement reaffirms the inequality that exists in our nationality laws with gender-discriminatory provisions that deny women the same rights as men to pass nationality to a non-citizen spouse and their children.
"This has resulted in wide-ranging rights violations and hardships for affected families, including obstacles in accessing education, healthcare, employment, family unity, freedom of movement, inheritance and property rights," Maria said.
She pointed out that the Federal Constitution allows foreign spouses of Malaysian men citizenship by registration after residing in Malaysia for two years, but foreign spouses of Malaysian women can only apply for citizenship upon naturalisation, after residing in the country for 10 years.
Maria added: "In a democracy based on rule-of-law, all citizens must be treated as equal before the law and, thus, be given equal rights to confer nationality on their children and spouses, regardless of gender.
"Research has also shown that gender discrimination in nationality laws is a primary cause of statelessness, and is linked with gender-based violence. In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, gender discrimination in nationality laws is exacerbating the vulnerability of affected families."
She said the discriminatory nationality law conflicts with the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (Cedaw) and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), both of which Malaysia has ratified.
"Let me also remind the deputy minister that in 2010, the then home minister Hishammuddin Hussein announced that Malaysian mothers have the same rights as Malaysian fathers to pass on their citizenship to their children born overseas.
"The deputy minister (Ismail) must not hide behind national security as an excuse to discriminate against women but be bold to take the necessary steps to bring about equality and non-discrimination.
"I urge him to withdraw his statement and to take a step further to make amends by proposing amendments to the nationality laws in Malaysia so that we can have happy families and children with their rightful citizenship," Maria said.
During the question-and-answer session in the Dewan Rakyat today, Ismail said that in other countries, children born overseas will follow the citizenship of their fathers.
As such, he said Malaysia should be diligent to prevent the child of a Malaysian woman with a foreign spouse from being granted dual citizenship. - Mkini
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.