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PETALING JAYA: An expert on statelessness has praised the Interior Ministry’s decision to grant a one-year window for any stateless person to apply for citizenship with the National Registry Department (JPN).
However, he said there were many challenges preventing stateless and undocumented people from continuing their application for citizenship, such as language barriers and literacy challenges.
In a statement, Saravanan M Sinapan, President of Human Resource Development for Rural Areas, Malaysia (DHRRA), said that these barriers often hampered their understanding of the application procedures and prevented them from acting during the language interview conducted by JPN.
Apart from this, Saravanan said that stateless persons also faced problems in providing the necessary supporting documents for their application, as some had missing or damaged documents, inconsistencies in their data, and even typographical errors in their birth certificates.
He said JPN’s existing SOPs, which require the stateless individual to present two witnesses who are at least 15 years older to initiate late birth registration, was also a challenge for those who were born before independence.
He said his NGO had also found a growing number of stateless children in the country during a mapping exercise conducted in 2014 to quantify the number of people affected by statelessness in Peninsular Malaysia.
Saravanan said this could be due to existing gender discriminatory provisions in national law, as well as ambiguity in the citizenship application for foundlings and adopted children.
“Despite possessing and submitting the required supporting documents to JPN, many still do not have the right to acquire citizenship status,” he said, adding that some had to reapply three or four times over a period of several years prior. to be finally recognized as Malaysians. citizen.
Interior Minister Hamzah Zainudin, during his closing speech during the committee stage of the 2021 budget for the Interior Ministry, urged stateless persons who have not registered with the JPN to do so as soon as possible.
“We achieved our independence in 1957, but some who are 63 years old come and tell me that they still do not have citizenship.
“There is no logic in this, so I will give you one year, for all, with the proper documentation and proof to register so that we can consider you as legal citizens,” he said.
However, Saravanan said that not possessing the proper documentation and proof to apply for citizenship were not the only factors preventing stateless persons from obtaining citizenship.
Therefore, he said that DHRRA has urged the government to take immediate action to understand and address the challenges faced by the stateless population in filing and proceeding with their citizenship application, including a review in the JPN SOPs regarding citizenship. .
He added that other stakeholders must also be involved to offer alternative solutions to existing challenges facing the community.
