The Malaysian Insight

MALAYSIAN mothers awaiting citizenship for their foreign-born children have started a social media campaign to debunk “myths” said by the home minister on the contentious matter.

Using the #sayaJUGAanakMalaysia hashtag, the women who have given birth abroad spoke about the complications involved in returning to Malaysia to deliver their babies, saying their loyalty to the country should not be questioned just because they had chosen to do otherwise.

The campaign comes on the heels of an interview on RTM TV1 earlier this month, during which Hamzah Zainudin said Malaysian mothers with foreign spouses who want citizenship for their children should have returned to the country to give birth.

The mothers took to Twitter to open up about risky pregnancies, miscarriage possibilities and other health issues that have placed them in life-and-death situations and made it hard to travel to Malaysia.

They said Hamzah’s comments show that he is insensitive and out of touch with the realities faced by expectant mothers.

Kavita Kaur urged the minister to stop trivialising a pregnant mother’s situation.

“Women should not be told to put our lives and our babies’ lives at risk just to board planes and fly back to Malaysia to give birth.

“I was refused to fly back by two doctors. In my desperation to return, I was scheduled to see another doctor for a third opinion.

“That morning, my baby was born premature and placed in an intensive care unit for many weeks.”

A mother, who gave her name as “Alison”, shared what she and her foreign husband had to go through after planning their return for the birth of their child.

“During my pregnancy, we travelled between China and Malaysia twice for my obstetrician appointment in Penang.

“It was very unfortunate that my water broke one day before my flight to return to Penang for the delivery.

“I was immediately hospitalised and delivered my daughter prematurely at 33 weeks by emergency caesarean.”

Alison said she applied for Malaysian citizenship for her daughter right after her birth, but there has been no progress with the authorities. Her daughter is now 5 years old.

Rekha Sen said the persistence of these mothers in wanting citizenship for their foreign-born children is a sign of patriotism.

“We are not any less patriotic to our country for having given birth to our children abroad. We want this badly, so we can contribute to our motherland, not take away from her.”

The social media campaign is led by Family Frontiers, a group of Malaysian mothers fighting for citizenship for their children abroad.

On October 12, a day after the interview, Family Frontiers tweeted that it will be posting content to rebut the minister’s statements, adding that there are Malaysian mothers who are trapped overseas due to Covid-19 travel restrictions.

Hamzah had also said citizenship cannot be easily given to “just anybody” because of existing laws that allow only Malaysian fathers to automatically confer citizenship on their children born abroad.

On September 9, the Kuala Lumpur High Court had made a landmark ruling in favour of Malaysian mothers married to foreigners, declaring that their foreign-born children can be conferred citizenship. Family Frontiers and six Malaysian women had filed the suit against Putrajaya.

However, the federal government, home minister and National Registration Department (NRD) are appealing the ruling.

The Home Ministry had recently confirmed that the NRD has approved only 21 out of 2,352 citizenship applications for foreign-born children between 2018 and 2021. Of the total applications, 31 were rejected.

It has not given any reason for the 31 rejections or update on pending cases.

The 0.89% success rate has raised questions about the selective, “case-by-case” manner in which applications are approved.

“With an approval rate of a mere seven citizenship applications per year, it will take the ministry 336 years to process the 2,352 applications received in the past three years,” the group said at a forum on October 31.

“Just wondering if the ministry thinks that Malaysian children have such a long lifespan.”

This also means that some 2,300 applications have been in limbo since 2018.

Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah said according to the Federal Constitution, the issue of citizenship involves the consent of the Conference of Rulers.

As such, the cabinet had last week decided that Attorney-General Idrus Harun will advise the Yang di-Pertuan Agong on the issue. – November 5, 2021.