Sarawak Women for Women Society is stunned that the Attorney General, in the name of the Government, has appealed against the recent learned judge’s decision to grant the same rights of citizenship to children born overseas to Malaysian women married to foreigners as is given to Malaysian fathers.

The decision by the AG to appeal is both heartbreaking and baffling. The public need to know on what grounds the Government thinks Article 8 of the Federal Constitution, which gives women protection against such blatant gender discrimination, can be ignored. The Court held that the constitution should be read in harmony to end such discrimination. A view which was warmly received by the defacto Law Minister, many prominent politicians and Suhakam’s Child Commissioner as well as women directly affected.

We therefore call on the AGC and the Home Minister to explain now why they are spending taxpayers money to take this matter to the Appeal Court. If they lose there as well, do they intend to take it all the way to the Federal Court of Appeal too? If so time and money will be spent while children wait and suffer.
For some of the Malaysian women affected, their marriages did not work out and they need their children fully accepted back in Malaysia. Others have to explain to their children why one child can have an IC and another not. Not accepting the court’s ruling affects these children’s future in so many ways including access to education and health.

In SWWS’s opinion it would be wise for the Government to reconsider this unpopular decision and withdraw their appeal promptly. There is growing anger amongst women that they are being treated as second class citizens despite Malaysia being a signatory to the UN Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination of Women (CEDAW). The country is also a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and progress on this is in the process of being reviewed. It is hard to see how the Government will defend their decision as being in the best of interests of children during the review.
For all these reasons SWWS hopes the Government will reconsider. For members of the public who feel the same, a petition is being circulated on social media and can be found on SWWS’s FB page.