NRD issues adoption certs once district office gives OK

KUCHING: The National Registration Department ( NRD) is only responsible in issuing an adoption certificate once a decision has been made by the district office.

Responding to Bukit Assek assemblywoman Irene Chang’s statement calling on the government to come up with a clear instruction on the adoption process especially for stateless children, NRD in a statement issued from Putrajaya clarified that registration for adoption in Sarawak came under the jurisdiction of District Offices in Sarawak under Section 4 of the Adoption Ordinance ( Sarawak Cap 91).

“The NRD is only responsible in issuing an adoption certificate after a decision has been made by the district office.

“Therefore, application for citizenship can be applied if the applicant has a valid adoption certificate from any NRD offices,” it said.

Chang recently stated that there was no clear instruction on which department parents should go to first before they could adopt a stateless child.

According to her, parents were being kicked from one department to another much like a football and that the procedures were not consistent in different places such as in Sibu, Kuching and Bintangor.

“In the past few years, district offices have refused to give the adoption application forms because they did not know where the child came from or whether a child is a Malaysian or not. District offices would ask parents to apply for citizenship first at the NRD before they could go ahead with the adoption process.

“On the other hand, the NRD would refuse to give the citizenship application form and instead ask parents to get the form first from the district office,” she claimed.