MP: “Grant citizenship to adopted children with adoption orders from the court”
SEGAMBUT MP Hannah Yeoh has criticised the Home Ministry for rejecting citizenship applications of adopted children despite adoption orders from the court for the Ministry to do so.
The former deputy women, family, and community development minister said the issue, which she had described as “never-ending” was made more complex for those who have obtained an adoption order from the court under the Adoption Act 1952 but had citizenship applications rejected by the Home Ministry without reason.
“Parents and their adopted children have to confront various social impacts of getting their citizenship applications rejected,” she said.
“These parents go through a lot of stress and emotional pressure. They are unable to make short-term or long-term plans in the care of their adopted children.”
Yeoh went on to name several issues faced by families with adopted children, among them:
- The adopted children lack access to education in government schools;
- They also have no access to government-owned maternal and children’s clinics, thus forcing them to turn to private healthcare which are often expensive;
- They are unable to go on holidays with their families abroad; They will have to pay foreign tourist rates to enter zoos, aquariums or bird parks;
- They cannot open bank accounts or have their own insurance; and
- They cannot represent Malaysia in any sports, leisure or cultural events.
According to Yeoh, the Government fails to comprehend that granting citizenship to adopted children with adoption orders from the court is a move that would benefit – and not disadvantage – the Government.
The most obvious benefits include reducing the Government’s financial burden, assisting Malaysian parents who want to legally adopt a child, and reducing the number of baby-dumping cases, she added.
“I urge the government to immediately grant citizenship to adopted children who have obtained an adoption order from the court,” Yeoh said.
“The Government should be grateful to the parents who adopted their children to realise the Keluarga Malaysia agenda.
“Any decision by the Government to ignore its own motto would only prove that the current Barisan Nasional and Perikatan Nasional Government is a hypocritical one.” – July 14, 2022
Even in quite open , liberal countries in Europe or North America, until relatively recently, obtaining full citizenship for an adopted foreign child was quite a messy bureaucratic process.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the common practice was to give the child , in the interim, full legal residence status, so there would not be obstacles to the child's education , health and social services.
There were tragic cases where the adoptive parents died soon after, or got into legal or criminal troubles, leaving the child in the lurch.
Things have improved a lot nowadays, but I am not surprised Malaysia is still far behind constitutionally and legally.
Only in Malaysia do we get government agencies ignore court orders.
ReplyDeleteRecall the Indira Gandhi case. Up till now the police is sitting on their backsides twiddling their toes.
That is how efficient our vaunted PDRM is. Ptui!!!!