526 stateless Sarawakians get official papers

A TOTAL of 526 individuals born and raised in Sarawak but without any identification documents have received official papers as of April 30.

Welfare, Community Well Being, Women, Family and Childhood Development Minister Datuk Fatimah Abdullah said the approved identification documents included MyKas (temporary identification card), MyKad (identification card), and birth certificates.

“The special taskforce set up by the National Registration Department in August 2015 has conducted 23 operations up to April 30 this year alone. During these operations, 526 applications were approved while 243 applications rejected mainly because there was no recognition from their community leaders or the names of the parents were not the same as those appeared on the birth certificate, meaning not biological parents,” she said when responding to a supplementary question raised by Chukpai Ugon ( BN-Murum) during the State Legislative Assembly sitting yesterday.

Fa tim ah said the special task force aimed to hold 50 operations in total this year. On reasons that hold back parents from registering their children, she said transportation and poverty were among the issues while some parents did not seem to realise the importance of birth registration.

She said children who were born and raised in Sarawak but without identification documents were known as ‘Pribumi Sarawak’.

Ever since the setting up of the special taskforce, she said 63 operations were carried out in 15 parliamentary and 28 state constituencies as of last December. She added that 4,908 applications were received during those operations, of which 2,884 applications had been approved and 1,214 rejected.