Dept adds colour to birth certs

PUTRAJAYA: Birth certificates for non-citizen children are now in red to differentiate them from citizens whose certificates are in pale green.

The issuance of the two-colour certificates started nationwide yesterday.

National Registration Department secretary-general Datin Jariah Mohd Said said, with the two-colour certificates, parents would immediately be aware of the citizenship status of their children.

“It will address the wrong impression among foreign parents that their children automatically become Malaysians by virtue of them having the pale green certificate.

“Pale green birth certificates are now only for Malaysians and the red certificates are for non-citizen children,” she said in a statement.

Prior to this, the pale green birth certificates were issued to all children born in the country irrespective of their citizenship status.

Jariah said the two-colour certificates would also make it easier for other agencies to identify the citizenship status of children.

She added that foreign children already holding pale green birth certificates could retain them but if they were to apply for an extract from any NRD office, they would get a red copy.

In March, Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein announced that the move to have certificates with two colours was to address the long-standing migrant problem, particularly in Sabah.

It was also to remind foreign parents that holding a birth certificate did not automatically mean that their children were Malaysians.

He said those who were identified as foreigners at birth but later verified as Malaysian, would have their red certificates changed to green with an indication on the certificate.

Hishammuddin said the suggestion for the different coloured birth certificates was among 22 proposals by the special lab on Sabah immigrants, that was tabled at the Fifth Cabinet Committee on Foreign Workers and Illegal Immigrants, chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.