Forum calls for gender-equal citizenship rights

PETALING JAYA: A group has called on the government to make an amendment to the Federal Constitution to enable automatic citizenship for children born overseas to Malaysian women.

The Foreign Spouses Support Group has advocated an amendment to Article 14 that touches on citizenship, saying that it discriminates on the basis of gender.

"Families are left vulnerable. As a result of these discriminatory laws, mothers, their children and extended family are trapped in uncertainty as the application process is tedious and takes many years," the group's lead coordinator Bina Ramanand said in her speech at a forum on gender-equal citizenship on Wednesday (Sept 18).

Under Article 14 of the Federal Constitution, the children born outside the country to Malaysian men are granted citizenship automatically.

For a mother, however, the application for citizenship for a child born outside Malaysia is via Article 15(2) – that is by registration.

This affects mothers married to non-Malaysians.

Bina said the process often took at least two years, involving multiple rejections without the reasons being stated.

"This forces families to face an uncertain future, hindering planning and decision-making in the family's best interests," she said.

Women's rights advocate Ivy Josiah said the colonial legacy laws reinforced a false and patriarchal notion that children must follow the father's citizenship.

"The present provisions do not reflect the real lives of Malaysian women who have international marriages, study or work overseas, and give birth abroad," she said.

Deputy Women, Family and Community Development Minister Hannah Yeoh, who was present, said they had spoken to the Home Ministry on five issues in April, including that of Malaysian women who gave birth overseas.

She added that the meeting with Home Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin was positive and the ministry was reviewing the matter.

"Today, we are living in 2019, men and women should be treated equal. We will continue to push until we see this through. We just want the Federal Constitution to be read in such a way that is family-friendly and child-friendly," she told reporters.

Yeoh said there were many families affected by this provision in the Federal Constitution

She noted that political willpower was needed to see it through.