MalayMail-July 10
Malaysia does not have official records of how many stateless persons are here, so how do we know the size of this “invisible” population? One non-government organization (NGO) has been compiling cases of those who should be Malaysians but have been denied citizenship. Development of Human Resources for Rural Areas (DHRRA) told Malay Mail it has identified over 16,000 genuinely stateless persons in Peninsular Malaysia from 2016 to June 2023. Out of about 16,392 verified stateless cases registered with DHRRA, an estimated 7,000 have now been recognized as Malaysians, while the remaining 9,392 are still stateless. Of the 9,392, the biggest proportion is childhood statelessness at 8,223 persons (which covers children born out of wedlock in Malaysia and children adopted by Malaysians); followed by 1,003 under the pre-independence stateless category (those who arrived or were born here even before Malaya’s independence in 1957 but are denied citizenship); and 166 cases involving babies or children who were born here but abandoned by their biological parents. Maalini Ramalo, DHRRA’s director of social protection, said some of these individuals have yet to receive a decision from the government on their citizenship applications filed in 2016. (This means that seven years on, their applications are still being “processed” by the authorities.) For the 9,392, Maalini said most of them have applied for Malaysian citizenship, with exceptions, such as those who are unaware that their previous citizenship application was rejected and might not have put in a new application. Two other exceptions Maalini mentioned are those who have been stateless since they were children but are “left hanging without any opportunity for citizenship application” as they are already above age 21 and the Article 15A pathway to citizenship is limited to those aged below 21; and abandoned children (whether they have the MyKAS or not, and those who have become adults) who usually do not have ongoing citizenship applications “as there is no straightforward pathway for them to apply for citizenship at the moment”. (On December 3, 2018, then deputy home minister Datuk Mohd Azis Jamman told the Dewan Rakyat that the green-colored temporary resident identity card (MyKAS) issued by the National Registration Department (NRD) is for those whose citizenship status is being doubted or yet to be determined, due to either undetermined issues in their birth certificates or due to their parents not having identification documents. Read more at:
