PETALING JAYA: Although Syeda Niba Batool Zaidi has successfully secured her citizenship after a long wait, she is sad that her late mother’s wish to see her children becoming Malaysians remains unfulfilled.
She and her three older siblings now live in different countries because the others are unable to get the Malaysian citizenship so desired by their mother for the family to be reunited in this land.
Syeda Niba, born in Pakistan to a Pakistani and his Malaysian wife, moved to Malaysia with her family in 2008.
“I was 10 then. Our parents made the move because my mum had gotten tired of travelling back and forth to visit and care for my grandmother here and decided to stay back,” she recalled in an interview, adding that her mother passed away in March 2022.
After their application for citizenship was rejected, Syeda Niba’s eldest brother had to leave the country when he turned 18; her other siblings followed suit later.
Following the rejection, Syeda Niba, now 26, and her siblings tried unsuccessfully to apply for permanent resident status in 2014.
Fortunately for her, she was able to apply for citizenship and succeeded this year after eight years of trying.
Growing up in Malaysia, Syeda Niba said she had to renew her student visa annually while being left out of extracurricular activities at school.
“When I received my citizenship, it was very hard for me because the person who had wanted it more than me was my mother and she didn’t get to see it.
“I couldn’t share this joy with her – the one person who was fighting for us (to get citizenship),” she said.
Syeda Niba’s siblings, meanwhile, live abroad in different countries and face obstacles in gaining citizenship in Malaysia.
“My siblings yearn to be back living here – our home,” she said.
During the Covid-19 lockdown, Syeda Niba said it was even harder for her siblings to enter the country.
“So my mother told them to delay their trip home for Raya but she passed on before the celebration,” she added.
Now, Syeda Niba hopes the government will remove regressive amendments to the country’s citizenship laws, which, she said, have forced her and her siblings to be apart.
In another case, Joeanne, 24, was adopted as a baby.
When she applied for her MyKad at 12, she found out that even though she had a birth certificate, the process of obtaining citizenship would be complicated for her.
“I only managed to get my identity card last year,” she said.
A determined Joeanne, however, went on to complete her studies and later read law at college.
“I am thankful to have received support from my parents even though I was stateless.
“The 12-year journey of getting my citizenship made me lose out on a lot of things such as going out with friends to places where a MyKad was required, opening a bank account or having a passport,” said Joeanne, now a paralegal.
The two cases are among those that the Malaysian Citizenship Rights Alliance (MCRA) has come across to push for the government to separate the progressive amendment of conferring automatic citizenship on the overseas-born children of Malaysian mothers from regressive amendments.
According to MCRA, the regressive amendments include those that will remove automatic Malaysian citizenship from Malaysian-born children.
Initially, the MCRA wanted the government to only proceed with the progressive law change and make it retroactive while delaying the regressive amendments, and at the same time carry out further reviews and consultations.
If the government is to proceed with the amendments in the Bill on citizenship, the group has, in a counter-proposal, recommended that the Home Ministry issue ministerial orders to speed up the process for citizenship applications.
It also suggested DNA testing for children born out of wedlock to non-Malaysian mothers to confirm Malaysian paternity, among others.
