JANUARY 28 — When I became pregnant last year, my non-Malaysian husband and I decided that, given the choice, it would be important for our child to share my citizenship.
We were both living abroad in a third country, and in the event of any emergency, at least our baby would be able to return to Malaysia and remain with me without any hiccups. Our child’s welfare came first. Never mind the fact that my husband came from a developed country with a “highly desirable” passport.
The single, most important factor was that our child could remain with me, his mother, no matter what happened.
It thus came as a complete shock when, three days after our son was born, the Malaysian consulate told me that I would have to apply for my son’s citizenship in a process that could take many years.
I had wrongly assumed that it was a simple bureaucratic process of filing a form and waiting for a few days. “Miss, it is not as simple as you might think. We have cases from 2010 that still have not been approved.”
My heart sank. “So you mean to tell me that all this is because I, the mother, am Malaysian? Isn’t this gender discrimination?” The female voice on the other end replied: “We have no comment on that.
“Discriminate” is not a word we use.”
“It is outright gender discrimination!” I said, and hung up the phone.
I was an exhausted new mother navigating another international move in the first weeks after giving birth abroad.
The last thing I needed was my country telling me that I couldn’t get my son a passport even though I was the one who pushed him out into this world.
I recognise the fact that citizenship is given on different grounds. Some countries bestow citizenship by virtue of being born or being resident there for a number of years, and others grant it on the grounds of lineage.
The basis of lineage can range from a simple case of proving that one of your parents is a citizen, or proving that your ancestors once resided there.
What surprises me is that our country chooses to discriminate against the gender of the parents. The father has to be Malaysian for the child to automatically qualify for citizenship. It is a lengthy application process with no guarantee if the mother is Malaysian.
This distinction protects foreign men and puts mothers and children in harm’s way.
In the event that my foreign spouse is abusive, I might choose to stay with him for the sake of remaining with my children.
Furthermore, in the event that I was able to take my children with me and flee to safety, I could run into a whole lot of problems due to our lack of common citizenship. They would have no right to enjoy any of the benefits of a citizen, such as the right to education and healthcare.
The point of citizenship is to bestow rights upon, and ensure the security of, a people and its future generations. It seems to me that Malaysia is doing the very opposite.
What I find ironic is that Malaysia takes pride in our matrilineal cultural heritage. Every Malaysian learns about adat temenggung and adat pepatih in our history curriculum.
We know that Negeri Sembilan is unique in that in grants women rights to inheritance. This proves that patriarchy is not inherent in our culture. In fact, every single Orang Asli tribe in Malaysia is not patriarchal— a fact that has been well documented by anthropologists. Patriarchy was imported at some point.
And it is not serving us.
I share my story on behalf of every Malaysian woman, regardless of occupation, qualification and circumstance.
Yet it is worth mentioning that this discriminatory policy is also harming Malaysia’s attempts to put an end to brain drain.
As a PhD student on a full scholarship from an overseas government, I am precisely the kind of talent that the Malaysian government wants to see return home and contribute to the Malaysian economy.
And that is what I had intended to do, with my children in tow. But now, I am seriously reconsidering returning to a country where my children are not given automatic rights, even though it is the only country I call home.
The Ministry for Women was established in 2001 to uphold Malaysia’s commitment to the United Nation’s Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. Article 9 of this Convention explicitly states that signatories will “grant women equal rights with men to acquire, change or retain their nationality” and bestow equal rights “with respect to the nationality of their children.”
Doesn’t the current preference for offspring of Malaysian fathers violate this?
Our current Prime Minister has been recently putting in a lot of effort to promote the empowerment of women. He is now the chair of a women’s empowerment council, and his government recently declared that pregnant civil servants would be allowed to go home an hour early.
I think we can go much, much further than this. We need to start dealing with real issues that impact future generations.
I’m sure the PM will agree with me. His daughter is, after all, married to a non-Malaysian.
*This is the personal opinion of the writer and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail Online.
