Foundlings are infants who are abandoned by their parents and later cared for by others.
Yayasan Chow Kit founder Hartini Zainudin said based on her experience, civil servants frequently perpetuate such myths by incorrectly labelling these foundlings as foreigners.
“It’s a careless narrative that has been repeated over and over again by civil servants.
“Regurgitated with no research, no proof, no data, to promote othering and xenophobia, (these children) are lumped as foreigners when they are not,” she told FMT.
Earlier, in her speech after a special screening of “Abang Adik” organised by the Malaysian Citizenship Rights Alliance, Hartini said foundlings who do not have a legal identity are ineligible for access to education, health services, and opening of bank accounts.
At a panel discussion later, Hartini, along with Lawyers for Liberty director Zaid Malik, activist Siti Rahayu Baharin and Voice of the Children chairman Sharmila Sekaran, again criticised the government’s amendments to the citizenship law, reiterating that it was regressive.
Last year, the government proposed eight amendments to the provisions for granting citizenship under the Federal Constitution.
Among the eight amendments is the granting of citizenship to stateless children and foundlings.
The amendment is directed towards altering the Second Schedule, Part II, Section 1(e) of the constitution, which grants citizenship to every stateless person born in Malaysia by operation of law.
It seeks to also amend the Second Schedule, Part III, Section 19(b), which pertains to the granting of citizenship to abandoned children.
Various activists and NGOs, including LFL, have strongly criticised the amendments, saying they could exacerbate the issue of statelessness or place stateless individuals in precarious situations.
“Abang Adik” follows a pair of underprivileged brothers, one of whom is undocumented living in the Pudu district. To get by, the mute and deaf older brother does menial jobs at the morning market, while his younger sibling gets involved in petty crimes.
The movie raked in RM2.2 million within its first three days of screening in Taiwan, and has won critical acclaim and multiple festival awards, including in Switzerland, New York and the Philippines.