First of all, allow me to congratulate the wife of Sarawak Governor Abdul Taib Mahmud for getting the citizenship and voting rights in the country all within six years of her marriage in 2010.
As a spouse of Malaysian, I believe it is her right to be granted the citizenship. As a matter of fact, 47,232 foreigners were granted Malaysian citizenship in between 2008 to 2015.
However, I wish to highlight that according to the written reply given by Home Minister on May 17, in between 2011 and April 2016, 131,810 children born in Malaysia were registered as “Non-Citizen” “Bukan Warganegara”. Most of the children did not get the citizenship because their Malaysian father did not register the marriage with his foreign spouses before the children were born.
Second Schedule of the Federal Constitution says that “every person born within the Federation of whose parents one at least is at the time of the birth either a citizen or permanently resident in the Federation are citizens by operation of law”.
Clearly, there is no provision under Article 15A of the Federal Constitution that expressly states that the marriage of a child’s parents must be officially registered to qualify for citizenship.
Stateless children endure a lot of hardship and inconvenience. Starting from 1st of January this year, our Government imposes full medical charges on non-citizens. They cannot enjoy the free primary and secondary education, not entitled to Textbook Loan Scheme. Only a handful has the opportunity to go to public universities, as they need to pay foreign student rates and cannot apply for PTPTN. They cannot apply for passport. With all these challenges, these children will have great difficulties to excel in life and they will also have a problem to get a good job.
Children should not be made victims due to their parents’ carelessness and mistake. If we can give citizenship to foreigners, including those from Indonesia (19,935), India (5,228) and Cambodia (2,387), why can’t we grant citizenship to the children of our own Malaysian citizens based on humanitarian grounds?