MALAYSIA clearly needs to make progress, not reversals, in removing explicitly discriminatory laws and unequal treatment on the basis of gender, birth status, and other unjustified criteria, leading to statelessness.
This intergenerational anomaly in most cases affects the most vulnerable segments of society, namely, women and children, with far reaching consequences for their basic rights. As academics working alongside civil society partners and legal advocates in pushing for revisions and reforms of existing discriminatory policies and laws on citizenship that have produced massive inequalities, we are perturbed by the possible regressive moves the government is making that look set to give rise to state-manufactured statelessness – incredulously, during the so-called historic transition to a more just and democratic government.
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