Lo: Stateless children still an unresolved issue in Sarawak

STATELESS children in Sarawak remain an unresolved issue which is unnecessarily cruel to the families concerned, laments Lo Khere Chiang ( SUPP-Batu Kitang). He found this to be upsetting especially when he had highlighted the issue at two previous State Legislative Assembly ( DUN) sittings.

According to him, the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Malaysia reported that there were 12,368 persons registered as stateless in the country while the Ministry of Welfare, Community Wellbeing, Women, Family and Childhood Development estimated that 60,000 people were without birth certificates in Sarawak, early this year.

“This is an alarmingly huge number. Ironically, almost all these children are born here, either to a foreign mother or foreign father.

“I have personally handled 15 cases with some of the children living in limbo for more than 21 years. Most would go to primary schools but when they wanted to enter secondary schools, they were not accepted as they do not have the identity card ( MyKad), which is needed for entry registrations,” he said when debating the Head of State’s address yesterday.

Lo also related that he had personally gone to the National Registration Department (JPN) to help some of the children but was repeatedly told that the final decision lies with Putrajaya.

“Unfortunately, Putrajaya dragged the issue without a care about the plight of these children. Some of the parents had also gone to JPN year- after-year but their efforts had all been in vain.”

He said it’s time that JPN handed over this devolution of power to Sarawak JPN to decide on the fate of these children rather than having to refer everything to Putrajaya, which takes years to make a decision.

“I am hopeful that the Pakatan Harapan government will hand over devolution of power to Sarawak so that we can settle this matter swiftly. Do not let stateless children suffer any longer.”