PH to simplify process of granting citizenship to stateless children
KOTA KINABALU: Pakatan Harapan (PH) would simplify the process of granting citizenship to the stateless children once taking over Putrajaya, said DAP Sabah secretary Chan Foong Hin.
He claimed that stateless children have to file legal actions and be dragged through a series of appeals simply to obtain the basic right of citizenship.
According to Buku Harapan, Chan said the Pakatan Harapan National Manifesto for the 14th general election (GE14) contains a pledge to the Indian community to resolve the issues surrounding stateless Indians within 100 days once resuming power.
The Sri Tanjong assemblyman opines that the pledge should be extended to other communities, especially there are ‘late registration' cases for the natives in the remote areas of Sabah and Sarawak.
Chan disclosed that there are about 300,000 stateless children in Malaysia. They include those who were abandoned at birth, unable to trace their birth parents whose parents - one of whom may be a foreigner - failed to register their marriage.
According to statistics provided by Home Ministry, from 2012 to 2017, 15,394 children born in Malaysia were denied citizenship even though their fathers are Malaysian citizens. In a nutshell, there are eight children born without citizenship every day.
“They are unable to attend school if they fail to produce their passports following the circular issued by the Immigration Department in December last year. Not only that, they cannot apply for passport and driving license. They are imposed full medical charges as they are noncitizens. How could they earn a decent job if they have so many challenges in their life?” he said in a statement yesterday.
“In fact, there is no provision under the Federal Constitution that expressly states that the marriage of a child's parents must be officially registered to qualify them for citizenship. Part II of the Second Schedule of the Federal Constitution says that ‘every person born within the Federation whose parents, or one at least, is at the time of the birth either a citizen of permanent resident in the Federation are citizens by operation of law.
“Children should not be victimized due to their parents' carelessness and mistake. There were nearly 50,000 foreigners granted Malaysian citizenship between 2008 to 2015. If the Malaysian government can give citizenship to foreigners, why can't we grant citizenship to the our own citizens' children?” asked Chan.
He urged the government to simplify the process of granting citizenship to these stateless children, as they are all children of Malaysian citizens. Citizenship should be granted when the fathers produced DNA report, or have legally adopted the children.
“If the government of the day doesn't care about the stateless children, vote for change and Pakatan Harapan would resolve the issues based on humanitarian ground,” he added.