KUCHING – Sarawak has requested special consideration for automatic Malaysian citizenship to be given to children under the care of Social Welfare Department institutions, said state Women, Childhood and Community Wellbeing Development Minister Datuk Seri Fatimah Abdullah.
She has said granting citizenship status to these abandoned children is crucial to ensure their future and facilitate the adoption process.
“In our experience, it has been shown that it is very difficult for our officers and staff in these welfare institutions to determine the biological parents of these abandoned children even though various efforts have been made.
“That is why through the special committee for citizenship under Article 15A of the Federal Constitution, we request that children under the care of these welfare institutions, especially cases like baby dumping, be given special consideration,” she said when met by reporters at an event here.
Fatimah said granting these children Malaysian-citizenship status would facilitate the adoption process as the adoptive parents would not need to bear the burden of seeking citizenship for them.
“They have good intentions of caring for the child and providing a better future for neglected or abandoned children.
“That’s why we ask for special consideration so they are granted citizenship – otherwise, the problem will be borne by the adoptive parents,” she said, adding there were currently seven children under the care of the department’s welfare institutions who did not have citizenship and whose applications had been approved.
She said she wanted to ensure children born in Sarawak had access to education but for stateless children, it was difficult for them to access education and parents would have to pay fees as foreigners and thus, many stateless children did not attend school despite education being a right for all children. – March 18, 2024