Mothers of overseas-born kids can finally register their children as Malaysians
A group of Malaysian mothers – whose children were previously denied citizenship because they were born overseas to foreign fathers – visited the National Registration Department (NRD) headquarters this morning where they finally managed to start the process to get the children's citizenship confirmation certificate.
This comes after the Court of Appeal dismissed an application by the federal government to stay a lower court ruling that Malaysian mothers have the right to confer citizenship to overseas-born children.
Family Frontiers president Suri Kempe in a statement described the trip this morning as an event that "breathed life" into the court's decision...
A group of Malaysian mothers – whose children were previously denied citizenship because they were born overseas to foreign fathers – visited the National Registration Department (NRD) headquarters this morning where they finally managed to start the process to get the children's citizenship confirmation certificate.
This comes after the Court of Appeal dismissed an application by the federal government to stay a lower court ruling that Malaysian mothers have the right to confer citizenship to overseas-born children.
Family Frontiers president Suri Kempe in a statement described the trip this morning as an event that "breathed life" into the court's decision.
"This is an exciting day - after the Court of Appeal dismissed the government’s stay application and ordered the government to issue the children of Malaysian mothers who were born abroad their citizenship documents, today’s trip to JPN breathed life into that decision, and confirmed that Malaysian women have the equal right to confer citizenship to their children.
"The mothers and their children went in, and JPN officers swiftly and efficiently facilitated the process to get their citizenship confirmation certificate, which will be issued within three months.
"Then, their children will finally be recognised as Malaysian citizens, and the mothers can use the citizenship confirmation certificate to get the children’s identity cards," she said.
According to Suri, the court order applies to all mothers who are similarly affected, and they can now head to the nearest NRD office to obtain Malaysian identity cards for their children.
She said NRD had informed Family Frontiers that they would issue SOPs to all its offices nationwide as well as Malaysian embassies and high commissions around the world to allow Malaysian mothers overseas to obtain their children's citizenship-related documents.
Prior to this, the government had been denying Malaysian mothers from conferring citizenship to their children who are born overseas while allowing men to do so. It means that Malaysian women who are married to non-Malaysians cannot pass down their citizenship to a child if the child is born outside Malaysia.
On Sept 9, the High Court in Kuala Lumpur declared that children born overseas to Malaysian mothers and foreign fathers are automatically entitled to Malaysian citizenship.
The government had filed an appeal against the decision and applied for a stay on the High Court's decision.
In Suri's statement, Family Frontiers also reiterated its call for Putrajaya to withdraw the appeal, which the NGO described as something that "makes no logical, moral or economic sense, and is devoid of compassion and the lived realities of Malaysian women and their children".
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