Children of Malaysian women have different citizenship rights to those born to Malaysian men prompting a group of mothers to mount a fight for equality all the way to the country's top court and its king, writes Chris Barrett.
Inside a coffee shop in Kuala Lumpur’s Damansara Heights neighbourhood is a gathering of a mothers’ club like no other.
It’s a policy that has denied basic rights such as healthcare and education to those affected and separated thousands of families over the years. It’s become even more problematic during the pandemic, when only Malaysians have been permitted to enter the country amid tight border controls. “We have Malaysian parents who cannot separate themselves from their children abroad and come back to see their dying parents.”Advertisement
The inertia of the public service is another contributing factor to families’ woes. While Family Frontiers says only 1 per cent of more than 11,000 applications for citizenship for children born overseas to fathers of other nationalities since 2013 have been successful, the process can take as long as 10 years, just to be rejected.
Three months later, nothing has changed and time is running out for children such as her son. Malaysia does not recognise dual citizenship and when those affected reach the age of 21, they are effectively forced to proceed with their father’s nationality instead. She and her Hong Kong-born husband adopted their son while living in the then UK territory, where they also had their daughter. Now adults – Nicholas lives in Sydney and Naomi in Hong Kong – the children spent the majority of their lives in Malaysia with their Malaysian mother. But when they could travel, prior to the pandemic, they had to come in on tourist visas.
“[Government officials] tell you to your face ‘you chose to marry a foreigner, so why do you expect [your child] will have Malaysian citizenship?’” Chee said. “It doesn’t feel right that Malaysian fathers and mothers are viewed differently in the eyes of the law concerning their child’s citizenship,” Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar said.
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