Pakatan Harapan’s (PH) national manifesto for the 14th general election (GE14) contains a pledge to the Indian community to resolve the issues surrounding stateless Indians within 100 days after taking over Putrajaya.
Sabah DAP secretary Chan Foong Hin said the pledge should be extended to stateless children in Sabah too, by offering them citizenship on humanitarian grounds.
“This should be, especially for the many late registration cases involving our own natives in the remote areas in Sabah and Sarawak,” he said.
“There are also many children who were abandoned at birth, who are unable to trace their birth parents or whose parent may be a foreigner who failed to register his or her marriage to a local.”
The Sri Tanjong assemblyman said it would also be good for the opposition to “have the political will to resolve the matter of stateless children in Sabah”, unlike the Barisan Nasional (BN) government.
“The plight of stateless children is appalling as they have to file legal action and be dragged through a series of appeals simply to obtain the basic right of citizenship.
“PH should simplify the process of granting citizenship to the stateless children once it takes over Putrajaya.”
Chan also cited statistics provided by the home ministry from 2012 to 2017, stating that 15,394 children born in Malaysia had been denied citizenship even though their fathers were Malaysian citizens.
“They are unable to attend school if they fail to produce their passports following the circular issued by the Immigration Department in December last year.
“Not only that, they cannot apply for a Malaysian passport or driving licence. They are also imposed full medical charges as they are non-citizens,” he said.
‘Don’t victimise children’
Chan said there is no provision under the Federal Constitution that expressly states the marriage of a child’s parents must be officially registered to qualify them for citizenship.
“Part II of the Second Schedule of the Federal Constitution says that every person born within the federation whose parents, or one parent at least, is at the time of the child’s birth either a citizen or a permanent resident in the federation, is a citizen by operation of the law.”
Chan said no government should “victimise children” for the carelessness or ignorance of their parents, while at the same time welcoming foreigners to become full citizens.
“There were nearly 50,000 foreigners granted Malaysian citizenship between 2008 and 2015, including the Sarawak governor’s wife.
“If the Malaysian government can give citizenship to foreigners, why can’t we grant citizenship to our own citizens’ children?”
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