Help for the stateless promised in manifesto

I REFER to the letter “Long wait to become citizens” ( The Star, Oct 23).

One of the promises in the Pakatan Harapan election manifesto was to solve the issue of stateless people in this country.

Their plight has been highlighted often enough in the local media, and promises have also been made to give citizenship to these people who were born in Malaysia.

However, things are not moving as we have expected. While fake identify cards have been identified throughout the country, in particular Sabah, many children born to at least one Malaysian parent have been denied citizenship.

A couple of months ago, when Kepong MP Lim Lip Eng opened a service counter to help stateless people, he was shocked to see a long queue waiting to see him.

People like Lateefah Koya, N. Surendran and Eric Paulssen have been working tirelessly to help stateless children.

This is the extent of the problem. It is not only affecting one particular race but thousands of people irrespective of ethnicity who have not known any country other than Malaysia as their home.

If the officers at the National Registration Department (NRD) are not able to cope with this issue, perhaps it’s time for the government to revamp the department, and the Home Affairs Ministry as well. We can no longer tolerate civil servants acting like little Napoleons.

I am dealing with the case of a stateless 11-year-old girl who was diagnosed with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Due to her status as a stateless person, her initial treatment in a public hospital has cost her family RM2,000.

The matter was brought to the attention of Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad who has gone the extra mile to help the family. Dr Dzulkefly has even offered to help them financially, and doctors at the hospital are very helpful too but this does not solve the problem of the child being stateless.

Over the long term, her treatment is going to be very costly for the family because the child, despite being born and raised in Malaysia, is treated as a foreigner.

Remember Roisah Abdullah, the brilliant student from SMK Sg Kapar Indah, Klang who, despite being a top scorer in STPM, could not enter a public university because she was considered stateless?

While Deputy Education Minister Teo Nie Ching has recently announced that stateless children should now be able to enrol in public institutions of higher learning, Roisah’s status has not changed after May 9.

I do not believe this is a case where the promises in the manifesto cannot be fulfilled. I believe the Home Minister, must issue a directive to set up a task force to handle these cases.

Let us use whatever power vested on us to get things sorted for these stateless people.

As the English-American poet W. H. Auden once said: “We are all here on earth to help others; what on earth the others are here for I don’t know.” STEPHEN NG Kuala Lumpur