PUTRAJAYA must immediately grant citizenship to adopted children who have already obtained adoption orders from the court, Hannah Yeoh said today.

“The application of parents applying for citizenship for their adopted child becomes a never-ending issue,” said the former deputy minister of women, family and community development.

“Most confusing are the cases involving adopted children where the parents have obtained an adoption order from the court but the application for citizenship was rejected by the Home Ministry without any reason,” the Segambut MP added.

The DAP lawmaker said that the previous Pakatan Harapan government had made the necessary arrangements to facilitate the application for citizenship for adopted children who have gone through the court process.

Yeoh said that granting citizenship to adopted children would only benefit the government, including by reducing the financial burden of the government such as in the management of government-owned children’s institutions and in reducing cases of infant abandonment.

She also highlighted the various social effects that parents and their adopted children have to face when their citizenship applications are rejected, claiming that parents go through a lot of stress and emotional pressure as they are unable to make long-term or even short-term plans to care for their adopted child.

Yeoh added that such children would also have no access to education in government schools, and would be unable to travel outside Malaysia with their parents.

She stressed that they would not have access to government-owned maternal and child health clinics, causing them to go to private clinics, which are very expensive.

The Segambut MP said the government should be grateful to parents who adopt as such a move realises the government’s Keluarga Malaysia agenda. – July 14, 2022.