Mommy, Am I Malaysian? The Plight of Children Born Overseas to Malaysian Women

Abstract

Citizenship is a vital human right, especially to children, as other rights such as livelihood, education, healthcare, and employment depend on whether a person is a citizen or otherwise. Citizenship of children born outside of the country is an issue throughout the world, not just in Malaysia. While many countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and others, have granted equal rights to children born abroad to mothers or fathers who are citizens of those countries, this is not the case in Malaysia. In conducting the qualitative method, this study referred to online databases for judicial decisions and legislations such as the LexisNexis and CLJ, online newspapers, journal articles, textbooks, conference papers, and published theses and dissertation. International law instruments such as the Convention on the Rights of Child and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. The major findigs of this Article is that Malaysian citizenship law is patriarchal, as children of Malaysian fathers born overseas are entitled to be citizens under the operation of the law. Notably, Malaysian mothers are not entitled to such rights. This article discusses the constitutional provisions on citizenship in Malaysia and the challenges faced by children born overseas to Malaysian mothers with regard to education, healthcare, employment and property ownership. This Article also highlights courts' decisions which show the willingness to recognise gender equality in the citizenship law. This Article employs a qualitative approach by analysing the judicial decisions, statutory provisions and comparative benchmarking with Singapore legal system..This article concludes that the Constitution should be amended to fully recognise the concept of gender equality and acknowledge the right of Malaysian mothers who gave birth overseas to confer citizenship by operation of law on their children. The failure to act fast would lead those children to become stateless. For future research, this study recommends a fieldwork study into the problems faced by children born overseas to Malaysian mothers be conducted to obtain primary data