Citizenship rights: One giant step forward for gender-equal laws

Filepic of Family Frontiers president Suri (far left) with four of the mums who were plaintiffs in the case. The High Court has ruled in favour of them, giving Malaysian women the same right as men to confer citizenship on their children by law. Photo: AFP

AFTER years of agonising about the status of her child's citizenship, Malaysian mum Myra Eliza Mohd Danil is beside herself with joy after hearing the High Court ruling today giving Malaysian mothers the right to confer citizenship by operation of the law on their children born abroad.

"Honestly, I cried when the judge read his judgement. Actually, we all did. We couldn't believe it. We thought this was going to be a long process but we thank God, Judge (Datuk) Akhtar (Tahir) ruled in our favour.