PETALING JAYA: A recent decision denying citizenship to overseas-born children of Malaysian women may force some of the mothers to remain in abusive marriages, says a family support group.
Two members of the Family Frontiers group said they had reports of Malaysian women unable to return to Malaysia with their children because of the citizenship problem.
The group’s lead coordinator, Bina Ramanand, said one Malaysian living overseas who contacted Family Frontiers had said she was trapped in an abusive marriage as her husband would not allow her to return to Malaysia with her children.
The group’s advocacy and community engagement coordinator, Corina Robert Mangharam, said if the children were automatically citizens through their mother, the women would be able to divorce abusive husbands.
Citing another case handled by Family Frontiers, she said there was a Malaysian forced to remain in South America, where her child was born. Although she had left her abusive partner, she could not return home because her children would face problems for not being citizens.
“They know their children will be on a short-term visa, and they have to leave periodically and re-enter the country, in order to renew their visas,” she told FMT.
Many of these Malaysian women were single mothers without the means to support repeated travel to renew their children’s visas.
Their problem is that their children are not automatically made Malaysian citizens although their mother is Malaysian.
On Aug 5, the Court of Appeal ruled in a split decision that children born overseas to Malaysian mothers could be denied citizenship by law.
Two judges, Kamaludin Md Said and Azizah Nawawi, held that the Federal Constitution provided citizenship to children of Malaysian fathers, and the meaning of the word “father” in that provision could not be extended to include the mother or parents.
It would be up to Parliament, not the courts, to rewrite the constitution, they held.
Ramanand said non-citizen children had problems in obtaining education, affordable healthcare, economic opportunities, and social protection.
Non-citizen children cannot be enrolled in schools until all their Malaysian counterparts have been registered, which could be up to 10 months later.
When seeking treatment at government hospitals or clinics, they would have to pay “foreigner” rates.
Mangharam urged the government to propose a constitutional amendment to allow children of Malaysian mothers to become citizens automatically by operation of the law.
“Legally, there is nothing stopping the Cabinet from leading the charge to alleviate the struggles of Malaysian mothers and upholding their rights,” she said. - FMT
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