PETALING JAYA: An NGO that advocates gender-equal citizenship rights said it was appalled by the home ministry’s approval rates for citizenship applications, saying such delays were detrimental on women and children.
The Family Frontiers group said the ministry’s inefficiency and lack of responsibility demonstrated is incredibly unacceptable.
“With an approval rate of less than 0.6%, it can be deduced that it would take the home ministry around six centuries to process all applications,” the group said.
Children of Malaysian women do not have such long lifespans, it said.
“The longer the home ministry delays the citizenship application process, the longer they deliberately place Malaysian women and their children in situations of harm and violence.”
The lack of a long-term legal status in Malaysia creates heightened uncertainty and anxiety for Malaysian women and their non-citizen children, including the possibility of children being separated from their families at any point.
The group contrasted the ministry’s performance with its budget allocation of RM17 billion, one of the largest among all ministries.
Data by the national registration department showed that only 19 of the 3,407 citizenship applications had been approved from 2018 to June this year. Seven were rejected.
In slamming the ministry, Merbok MP Nor Azrina Surip, of PKR, said this meant the rate of approvals came up to 0.6% and it would take 681 years to approve all the child citizenship applications in Malaysia. - FMT
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