Review amendments on citizenship says Shahrizat

SHAH ALAM - The proposal to amend the Federal Constitution on citizenship rights must be reviewed again.

Umno's Women and Family Affairs Council (Hawa) chairman Tan Sri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil urged Home Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution to re-evaluat the proposed amendments.

This is because any amendments to the Constitution must be centred around the best interests of the children.

Welcoming the government's action to amend the constitution to allow Malaysian mothers to confer citizenship on children born overseas to foreign fathers, she disagrees, however, with some of the other proposed amendments.

Shahrizat said if people are worried about loyalty to the country, the best thing to do would be to nurture loyalty by helping children "in their greatest hour of need," adding that the state has a duty to take custody of a child when parents forsake them.

She added that Malaysia is a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of a Child, which echoes this commitment.

"Currently, the constitution guarantees that "any child who is not born a citizen of any country... " is afforded Malaysian citizenship by "operation of law".

"This provision applies to children who have been found and presumed abandoned. The constitution ensures that these children are able to access their basic rights, including healthcare, education, and shelter. It is a form of protection because we recognise that children are innocent and not to be blamed for their situation.

"We may be tempted to believe that showing these children kindness by affording them citizenship rights is a weakness and opens our laws up to abuse. We may also be tempted to believe that by making it more difficult for these babies to become Malaysian, it will disincentivise parents—whether they are Malaysian or non-Malaysian—from abandoning their children. It will not.

"I say this not to absolve parents of their responsibilities, but I would like us to remember that the act of abandoning a child under any circumstance is an extremely desperate act.

"My years as minister of women, family, and community development have taught me that removing such protections will only create a host of new needs for an already severely marginalised group of children while simultaneously further exacerbating pervasive structural challenges," she said in a statement.

Malaysia must not act out of gear and remove or restrict what is good in existing laws, such as protections for vulnerable groups of children, she added.

"It is my sincere hope that the home minister will carefully consider the suggested adjustments in order to represent the spirit of fairness and compassion that I believe drove the revisions to our citizenship provisions in the first place.

"Centre the best interests of the child as a main priority in the proposed amendments, because all children in Malaysia have the potential to contribute to the future of our country." she added.