GEORGE TOWN – DAP Wanita hopes the Home Ministry will revise its stance on not granting automatic citizenship to children born overseas to Malaysian women married to foreign spouses, said the wing’s international secretary Kasthuri Patto.
Kasthuri said the move is discriminatory to women and the government should instead aspire to be part of the solution to this dilemma, not part of the problem.
“We should grant citizenship to children born overseas to patriotic Malaysian mothers who want their children to be bearers of the Malaysian identity,” the Batu Kawan member of parliament said in a statement.
Kasthuri was responding to a reply in Parliament by Deputy Home Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Mohamed Said.
She said the issue was a colossal failure on the part of the Perikatan Nasional government to recognise the pain and heartaches of Malaysian mothers abroad who were also patriotic citizens holding on to their Malaysian citizenships.
“The mothers also want their children to be proud bearers of the Malaysian identity, holding a Malaysian citizenship and called anak bangsa Malaysia,” said Kasthuri.
She said that Ismail’s best defence was that it was to prevent dual citizenship, which made no sense when the federal constitution had provisions allowing the Malaysian government to grant citizenship without resistance or politicking from any vested quarters.
Article 15(A) of the federal constitution on “special power to register children” stipulates that “subject to Article 18, the federal government may, in such special circumstances as it thinks fit, cause any person under the age of 21 years to be registered as a citizen”.
Malaysia is also signatory to the Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against Women, with a reservation in Article 9(2) of the convention that reads “states, parties shall grant women equal rights with men with respect to the nationality of their children”.
Kasthuri said international conventions were instruments constructed according to international standards upholding the spirit of democracy, justice, equality, freedom, and human rights.
She said the conventions should be used as a guide and compass to steer all governments and establishments in the right direction, as well as to defend the tenets of universal human rights, also enshrined in the federal constitution.
“The PN government should bring necessary reforms to uphold, defend, and protect the rights of women, particularly mothers and their children who are also Malaysian citizens who wish to rise above themselves to do what is right,” said Kasthuri. – The Vibes, December 5, 2020
