After citizenship U-turn, govt urged to tackle stateless Sabahans
Published on: Friday, March 22, 2024
By:
FMT, Predeep Nambiar
Suhakam children’s commissioner Farah Nini Dusuki said the legal safeguards kept the country aligned with 70% of the world offering similar protections to children. (Facebook pic)
PETALING JAYA: Human rights commissioners of Suhakam have hailed the government’s decision to drop plans to cancel automatic citizenship for foundlings or abandoned children and called for action on indigenous Sabahans deprived of citizenship.
The government’s decision to retain foundlings’ rights was “fantastic news” and a significant win for children’s rights, said Suhakam children’s commissioner, Farah Nini Dusuki, who is a law lecturer at Universiti Malaya.
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Suhakam commissioner K Ragunath said the minister must make regulations for the national registration department to follow.
These regulations must also provide for transparency in the citizenship application process. “That way, a person will know their application status and they’re not left stranded for five to six years before any response is forthcoming,” he said.
The government had previously planned to replace the automatic citizenship of foundlings with registration, a process that Suhakam and other civil society groups considered regressive.
Farah said the minister should also maintain the minimum age to apply for citizenship at 21 instead of lowering it to 18, and tackle the issue of indigenous Sabahans deprived of citizenship.
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She said some Sabahans from rural areas were only permanent residents, despite being born in Malaysia. She added that these Sabahans should have their citizenship applications expedited.
Ragunath, who thanked the home minister for dropping the “obnoxious and regressive” foundling amendments, said it was disappointing not to see any movement for registering permanent residents of Sabah and Sarawak.
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Activist Siti Rahayu Baharin, from the citizenship interest group Gabungan Hak Kewarganegaraan Malaysia, said the other amendments affecting children should also be looked at carefully.
“The home ministry must now study the negative impacts of the other amendments. The ministry should engage with the civil society further, as consultation is the way forward,” she said.
The Malaysian Citizenship Rights Alliance urged the home ministry to drop or defer the constitutional amendment on the registration of permanent residents of Sabah and Sarawak, and to keep the minimum age for citizenship applications at 21.
The group said lowering the minimum age to apply for citizenship to 18 was problematic as applications usually take between three to six years to be processed, adding that the reduction limits legitimate pathways to citizenship.
Earlier today, the government said it had decided not to go ahead with the planned changes to the citizenship laws regarding foundlings and some stateless children.
The proposed amendments met with fierce opposition from civil society groups, which argued the changes could worsen the problem of statelessness and put already vulnerable people at risk.
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