Babies and children abandoned with no documents and no traceable living kin tend to end up stateless. — 123rf
CHILDREN are among the most vulnerable members of society, let alone those who are abandoned by their parents or guardians.
To make matters worse, those abandoned with no documents and no traceable living kin tend to end up stateless.
According to the Development of Human Resources for Rural Areas Malaysia (DHRRA) NGO, children abandoned at birth without documents are considered foundlings. Some foundlings are raised in government welfare homes but because their parents cannot be located, they are given temporary residence status (MyKAS), renewable every five years, but only if they are registered by the Social Welfare Department (JKM).
These children often end up having to navigate, with little guidance, an unsympathetic bureaucracy dissonant with the law.
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Child rights activist Datuk Hartini Zainudin relates a heartbreaking incident she witnessed while helping one such child to apply for citizenship.
“They end up in institutions, whether it’s with the government or private, so when they come out, nobody tells them anything. They have to apply for citizenship at 17, 18 or 19 years old by themselves.
“I will tell you one of the most heartbreaking things for me is having to watch that kid having to fill in those forms and having to answer very, very rude frontliners who ask them the most insensitive questions – like, ‘How can you not know where your parents are?’
“I’m like, dude, really? Things like this are what the government and civil servants need to understand about being a person, and an orphan, and someone who has nobody,” Hartini says.
Hartini: ‘It was heartbreaking to see a foundling apply for citizenship and face rude questions about their parents.’ — The Star
There is the law, she says, but what happens in reality is completely different.
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National Unity Deputy Minister Saraswathy Kandasami, who has always been vocal about the issue of statelessness, agrees with Hartini about the juxtaposition between the law and what happens on the ground, based on her own experience.
“My office forwarded an application for citizenship by a third-generation stateless person.
“A letter was sent to her and copied to my officer, saying the person had to apply under Section 19, and to get the application through one of the criteria is she must have an entry permit.
“From which country? She was born in Malaysia. Whose law is that? It is not in the Constitution,” Saraswathy says.
Saraswathy: There is a juxtaposition between citizenship laws in the Federal Constitution and what happens on the ground that needs to be addressed. — The Star
The Constitution gives the Home minister prerogative powers to decide on such cases but Saraswathy argues that the cases stop at the officers and do not even reach the minister.
The government should look into bureaucratic technicalities such as these so that foundlings are given more space to apply for citizenship, adds Hartini.
The national discourse about foundlings was reignited several months ago when Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s administration tabled proposed amendments to citizenship laws in Parliament which critics said would only worsen statelessness in the country.
Of particular contention were the proposed amendments to Section 1(e), Part II, Second Schedule detailing who is a citizen by operation of law and Section 19(b) of Part III of the Second Schedule which provides additional guidance on who is a citizen by operation of law.
The amendments would have changed the phrase “operation of law” to “registration”.
Among the effects these changes would have, say detractors, is that foundlings will no longer have the right to citizenship and will have to “register”.
The government eventually dropped the two proposed amendments following massive backlash, and the bill was subsequently postponed to the Dewan Rakyat sitting convening in October.
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However, activists are still alarmed over the other provisions in the bill and how it may affect the stateless, especially children.
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The proposed amendment to Article 15A granting broad discretionary powers to the Home Ministry to confer citizenship on those below the age of 21 will see the age bracket lowered to 18 years. This reduces the already tight time window for childhood citizenship applications - applications which often take up to three years to be approved.
Hartini says it does not make sense to lower the age bracket to 18 years as the laws are not harmonised.
“The adoption law and property laws say you have to be above 21 years old. We put 13-year-olds and treat them as adults in detention, so where is the harmony in saying oh because 18-year-olds can vote, we are going to lower the age (in Article 15A) to 18.
“We haven’t done enough research, we haven’t aligned the laws, we haven’t married all the different laws that need to come together.”
Expressing her outrage at the proposed amendments, Hartini says not only will this move lead to an increase in statelessness, but it will also cause stateless people to disappear as they will not even be acknowledged under the law.
“Mark my words. They have no avenue for appeal if this happens and that is the honest truth.
“These amendments are absolutely regressive and we are going to fight it till the end.”
