Stigma of being born out of wedlock contributes to baby dumping

PETALING JAYA: Rosli (not his real name) has been fighting for the last six years for his granddaughter’s birth certificate to include her father’s name but without success.

He said his granddaughter, now aged six, was born five months after his son’s marriage, a month short of the six months cut-off point for a baby’s father’s name to be included in the birth certificate as required by syariah law.

He said government officers could not help him because the case was considered anak tak sah taraf (child of unverified status).

“Why do they have to punish the child for the act the parents did?” he asked.

Rosli said his son recently registered his elder daughter and her four-year-old sister at a kindergarten.

The teacher asked why the father’s name was different from his sister’s.

“Now, the older girl is unhappy and miserable,” Rosli, 65, added.

He said he was also worried when she gets married later, her father could not be her wali (trustee) at her marriage solemnisation (akad nikah).

Former Sisters in Islam (SIS) executive director Ratna Osman said the case was one of the reasons that could lead pregnant mothers to give up their babies or dump them.

She pointed out that Section 23 of the Syariah Criminal Offences (Federal Territories) Act 1997 states that any woman who gives birth to a fully developed child within a period of six months from the date of her marriage shall be deemed to have been pregnant out of wedlock.

“If a child is born out of wedlock, the child is considered illegitimate as the father’s name cannot be registered in his or her birth certificate.

“Even if there is a marriage, if the baby is born less than six months from the time of nikah, the legal father’s name cannot be registered,” she said.

She added that even if the marriage existed, the mother had no right to go to court to compel the father to pay maintenance if the father refused to pay, according to Section 80 of the Islamic Family Law (Federal Terri­tory) Act 1984.

For the girl, it is even worse because the father cannot be the wali when his daughter gets married and would have to take a sya­riah judge as the wali and her future husband and family members would then know of her background, she said.

Ratna said the lack of sex education was also another reason unwanted pregnancies and baby dumping were still happening.

WAO advocacy officer (law and policy) Lainey Lau said that patriarchal ideas still prevail and girls were pressured into marriage when found that they have had sex, rather than being given the choice to decide for themselves.

“Access to contraception is hindered by an intentional effort to ‘discourage promiscuity’ and this was a naive view and clearly did not work, as unwanted pregnancies are on the rise,” she said.