A GROUP of frustrated and anguished parents turned up at the National Registration Department office in George Town today to highlight the plight of their stateless children.

Widower Hamzah Abdul Hamid, 54, from Johor, said his family are split after his Indonesian wife died last June. Their son is now living in Jawa Barat with the maternal relatives.

Their 10-year-old daughter, who lives in Penang with him, is stateless and cannot go to school.

“Since she was seven, I have been trying to enrol her into primary school, but she always get rejected because she is not a Malaysian citizen.

“My son, now 11, has the same problem. I couldn’t help him, so I sent him to Jawa Barat, to my wife’s family. He is now an Indonesian. At least, he can go to school,” he said.

Bayan Baru MP Sim Tze Tzin, and PKR lawyers Latheefa Koya and N. Surendran were present at the Jalan Anson building to assist the families.

In Malaysia, the citizenship of a child follows the mother’s, making it complicated for couples with different nationalities, especially when they register their overseas marriages with the NRD late.

Hassan Basri Abdul Wahab, 61, and his Filipino wife Siti Nurshuhada Abdullah, 52, were also hoping to solve their four children’s citizenship problem.

They married in the Philippines in December 2011 and registered their marriage in Johor the following month. All their children were born in Malaysia.

While their two daughters, Natasha Kartika, 12, and Farah Elisha, 13, are schooling at Convent Lebuh Light, paying full school fees as non-Malaysians, their older boys, Muhamad Rizal, 18, and Muhamad Fitri, 17, have never been to school.

“I teach them as much as I can at home. The girls share with their brothers what they learn from school,” said Siti Nurshuhada, who has lived in Malaysia for 27 years.

Both sons learnt Malay martial arts silat and Fitri has won several gold medals.

“But he cannot go overseas to compete, although he is good enough. He can only compete in Malaysia,” Hassan said.

Rizal and Fitri are working as a cook and waiter respectively.  

Another frustrated father Lim Wei Hun, 40, said he had been running around trying to get citizenship for his two boys, aged seven and six, so they could go to school and have a secure future.

He and his Chinese national wife married in Thailand in September 2012. Only their youngest daughter is a Malaysian.

“I had a DNA test in 2014, went to court last year to get an order acknowledging our sons, who were born out of wedlock and then I was told, I have two years to get passports for my boys so they can go to school like other kids and have a secured future.

“They were born here, raised here and will continue living in Malaysia. Why must we go to China to get them passports? 

“When they were born, they were already given MyKid numbers. Why can’t I register my boys for school when they already have MyKid numbers?” the businessman said, referring to the identity numbers given to children born in Malaysia.

Sim said the stateless children issue was the Home Ministry’s bureaucratic failure, causing many children to be denied their basic right to education.

The issue has been raised many times in the Dewan Rakyat but the government’s reply is that the matter is being looked into, Sim said.

“We don’t hear many success stories. The system is outdated. It cannot kick people around, telling them to wait. Some have been waiting for years.”

Surendran said PKR is looking into 43 stateless cases, of which 41 are minors and two adults. – January 26, 2018.