KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 20 — Some Malaysian parents take the citizenship rights of their offspring for granted and only register their child’s birth when they are unable to enrol in school or obtain a bank account, the National Registration Department (NRD) said.

NRD director-general Datuk Mohammad Razin Abdullah said the NRD receives an average of 500,000 birth registrations annually and an average of 15,000 to 20,000 late birth registrations.

“We are unable to truly evaluate how many more children in the country are without documentation, that is also why we push the Outreach Programme, to help solve the problem of undocumented children in this country through this platform, at the same time raising the public’s awareness on citizenship rights,” he was quoted telling local daily Sin Chew Daily in an interview.

Mohammad Razin said all parents must register the birth of their child as required under the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1957.

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He said parents have no reason not to register their children’s birth, pointing out that the NRD had already helped out parents including through the extension of the birth registration period from the initial 14 days to 60 days.

Mohammad Razin said the NRD has rolled out an Outreach Programme, where mobile counters are set up in rural areas to make it easier for Malaysians to apply for identity cards and birth certificates.

After such applications, the documents will be sent to the NRD branch nearest to the applicants to lessen the latter’s burden, he said.

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“One of the things that we are studying is to allow the mobile counters to hand over the documents to the applicant on the spot. But this touches on certain security aspects, so we have to carefully evaluate, if conditions allow, we will implement it,” he was quoted saying by Sin Chew Daily.

He also said the NRD received 14,041 citizenship applications in 2015, 16,448 and 13,725 such applications in 2016 and 2017.

He added that 7000 citizenship applications were approved in 2015 and 2016.

He explained that the NRD is only tasked with receiving citizenship applications, while the Home Ministry has the authority with approving citizenship applications.

He said citizenship applications are rejected for a number of reasons, including failure to meet the criteria, incomplete information, and having a criminal record.

He cited as example an application to be naturalised citizen under the Federal Constitution’s Article 19, where the applicant would have to be aged at least 21 and having resided in Malaysia for at least 12 years.

Such an applicant would also have to be of good character and pass a Bahasa Malaysia oral test, he said.

“Applicants only need to know simple Bahasa Malaysia, but when some of the applicants come for oral tests, when the officer asked ‘Apa Nama Cik’ (What is your name), they are unable to answer and naturally cannot pass the Bahasa Malaysia oral test,” he said.