Have a heart for the adopted

Rohana Abdullah (left) and Chee Hoi Lan

ROHANA Abdullah and Chee Hoi Lan stood out from the rest of the crowd of eager students and parents who turned up at the Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka (UTeM) registration session on Monday. The former stateless child and spinster Chee, 83, who adopted her when she was two months old, were well recognised there.

It was another amazing episode in their story, which has touched the hearts of Malaysians since Harian Metro highlighted it in January.

Rohana’s Indonesian mother was a cleaner in a kindergarten where Chee was a teacher. When the child was abandoned, Chee became her foster mother and raised the girl as a Muslim.

But as Rohana turned 12, she could not get an identity card although she was born in Malaysia and had a copy of her Malaysian father’s identity card. She had to quit school at one point.

Rohana, 22, said she suffered severe anxiety and even contemplated suicide, adding that it was the thought of who would care for her adoptive mother, whom she calls laoshi (teacher), that prevented her from doing so.

As the story went viral on social media, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob directed the Home Ministry to look into the case.

Rohana, who had been applying since 2016, received her MyKad and citizenship certificate in April.

While it is a happy beginning for her as a citizen, thousands of other adopted children in Malaysia – mostly abandoned babies – face an uncertain future with their adoptive parents overwhelmed by the slow and tedious process of getting their applications for citizenship approved.

They have been grappling with the requirements of the National Registration Department (NRD), Immigration Department and the Education Department, only to be told that their cases were still being processed.

As former Deputy Women, Family and Community Development Minister Hannah Yeoh highlighted recently, there are numerous cases of parents who had obtained court orders under the Adoption Act 1952, but their applications were rejected without reason.

These parents are under much stress and emotional pressure as they are unable to make plans for their children.

Among the issues include lack of access to education in government schools and clinics, paying more in entry fees to zoos, aquariums or bird parks and being unable to open bank accounts or be insured.

Last week, I came across such a couple who have been struggling to get citizenship for their adopted son, born in a hospital in Kuala Lumpur in 2018 to a foreign woman and a Malaysian man.

They went to court to get the adoption legalised and were given temporary custody of the child.

But the NRD issued a red birth certificate instead of the regular green one, with the column on citizenship stating “Not a citizen”.

“We have been to Putrajaya at least 20 times since 2019, but the matter remains unresolved,” lamented the adoptive father.

It is also a huge financial strain. As a stateless child, the boy cannot go to a local kindergarten. He is now in a private pre-school, for which the parents paid a RM9,500 deposit while the monthly fee is RM1,400.

If he does not get his citizenship in three years’ time, the parents would have to send him to a private school where the entrance deposit alone is RM25,000.

Under the Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989 (CRC), which came into force on Sept 2, 1990 and was ratified by Malaysia on Feb 17, 1995, every child has a right to citizenship.

Under Article 7 (1), the child should be registered immediately after birth and should have the right from birth to a name and the right to acquire a nationality.

Clause (2) of the Article states that governments should ensure the implementation of these rights in accordance with their national law and their obligations under the relevant international instruments, particularly where the child would otherwise be stateless, while Article 28 (1) requires that governments recognise the right of the child to education.

But despite the ratification, the government filed this reservation:

“The Government of Malaysia accepts the provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child but expresses reservations with respect to articles 2, 7, 14, 28 paragraph 1 (a) and 37, of the Convention and declares that the said provisions shall be applicable only if they are in conformity with the Constitution, national laws and national policies of the Government of Malaysia.”

But why should there be undue delays in processing applications, especially after the Federal Court has set a precedent of how the NRD and the Home Ministry must deal with the status of abandoned babies?

In a landmark case on Nov 19 last year, the apex court granted citizenship to a 17-year-old boy, who was born in 2004 and adopted by Malaysian parents, after considering the birth records, which showed that his biological mother was either a Malaysian or a permanent resident.

In announcing the unanimous decision by the five-member bench, Chief Justice Tun Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat said the NRD’s allegation that the adoptive parents concealed the biological parents’ identities was not supported by evidence.

The Federal Court overturned earlier decisions by the Penang High Court and the Court of Appeal to reject the application for citizenship.

“When confronted with an application for registration of such newborn children, the burden is on the respondent (NRD) to undertake proper investigation to determine the status of the child’s biological parents or mother.

“If it is found that the newborn baby’s abandonment is true, the respondent is obligated by the highest law of Malaysia to recognise that child’s citizenship by operation of law, except where there is evidence to the contrary, as we stated earlier,” she said.

Tengku Maimun said citizenship by operation of law was a fundamental and constitutional right.

“It leaves absolutely no room for the exercise of subjective notions or presuppositions of what citizenship is.”

Media consultant M. Veera Pandiyan likes this quote by Nelson Mandela: “History will judge us by the difference we make in the everyday lives of children.”

The views expressed here are the writer’s own.