Families ‘still in limbo’ as Malaysia again postpones controversial citizenship amendments

Children born overseas to Malaysian mothers will have to wait longer to know if they qualify for automatic citizenship, after the government postponed a controversial citizenship amendment bill that activists say could trigger a wave of statelessness in the country.

The government on Thursday postponed for a second time the debate on a bill seeking to amend citizenship provisions in the federal constitution, which would allow Malaysian women to pass on citizenship to their foreign-born children.

Critics, however, say that the proposed changes will not benefit existing children as they do not apply retroactively, and that other planned amendments would exacerbate intergenerational statelessness among natives and deprive naturalised female citizens of their rights should they end up divorced.

“Yes, we are still in limbo because nothing has really happened,” said Suriani Kempe of Family Frontiers, which has been pursuing automatic citizenship for children born overseas to Malaysian mothers since 2020.

“We are glad because we hope [the postponement] will give the government more time to evaluate and review our counter-proposals and take it into consideration, but for the mothers, it means that they are still waiting.”

Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s administration had earlier postponed a parliamentary debate on the bill in March following severe public backlash over proposed provisions that would have done away with automatic citizenship for foundlings and abandoned children.

Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution had earlier said the government needed to tighten the country’s citizenship criteria as existing laws were open to abuse from the 3.5 million foreigners living in Malaysia.

Saifuddin told parliament on March 11 that there have