Citizenship and Statelessness Committee

About This Committee

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Statelessness in Malaysia is not accidental. It is structural.

 

As AWL's Committee Lead has observed, those who become stateless are affected "largely due to gender inequality in our laws and the lack of legal identification documents such as birth certificates or marriage certificates from their parents."

 

The Malaysian Federal Constitution contains entrenched provisions that treat Malaysian mothers and Malaysian fathers unequally: A Malaysian father may automatically confer citizenship on his child, while a Malaysian mother historically could not, leaving thousands of families in legal limbo.

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AWL's Citizenship and Statelessness Committee works at the intersection of constitutional law, human rights advocacy, and is involved with other organisations to dismantle these inequalities. We engage in strategic litigation and hold watching briefs in significant court proceedings; submit representations to Parliament and the Home Ministry; produce public commentary and publications; and collaborate with a wide network of civil society partners on this journey.

 

AWL’s presence in court on this issue spans nearly a decade of some of Malaysia’s most consequential citizenship cases.

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Key Issues We Work On

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Our work spans the full range of citizenship and statelessness issues affecting vulnerable groups in Malaysia, including handling the following:

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• Equal citizenship rights for mothers

• Foundlings and abandoned children

• Stateless children born in Malaysia

• Opposing regressive constitutional amendments: Between 2023 and 2024, the government proposed a package of citizenship amendments. While one — granting Malaysian mothers equal rights to confer citizenship on overseas-born children — was welcomed, Malaysian Citizenship Rights Alliance (MCRA) and AWL raised serious concerns about five accompanying amendments that would have stripped existing constitutional safeguards, including by removing the foundling protection under section 19B of Part III Second Schedule and deleting Section 1(e) of Part II Second Schedule of the Federal Constitution; and narrowing the rights of children of permanent residents.

 

In Court: Watching Briefs 

 

AWL participates in landmark citizenship proceedings as a watching brief holder monitoring significant cases on behalf of the organisation and the public interest. 

 

Coalition Partnership 

 

AWL is a founding member organisation of the Malaysian Citizenship Rights Alliance (MCRA), a coalition of civil society organisations, activists, and concerned citizens dedicated to upholding the rights and dignity of stateless persons and those impacted by discriminatory citizenship laws.

 

The MCRA has coordinated parliamentary lobbying across party lines; engaged directly with the Home Ministry and Cabinet on proposed constitutional amendments; issued public statements endorsed by nearly 100 NGOs and individuals; and convened press conferences to counter regressive legislative proposals.

 

AWL contributes legal expertise, litigation experience, and advocacy capacity to MCRA's coalition work.

 

Fellow MCRA member organisations include:

 

Family Frontiers · ANAK Sabah · Buku Jalanan Chow Kit · DHRRA Malaysia · HAKAM · HaKita · IMAN Research · Johor Women's League (JEWEL) · Lawyer Kamek (Sarawak) · Malaysia Hindu Dharma Mamandram · Persatuan Pendidikan Bajau Laut (Iskul Sama diLaut Omadal) · Stateless Malaysians Citizenship Movement · Voice of Children (VOC) · Yayasan Chow Kit · and others

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Related Links / Publications and Commentary

 

• 12 Jul 2024: MCRA gives PM, ministers, all MPs a counter-proposal to fix ‘regressive’ parts of citizenship Bill25 Mar 2024: Press Conference: MCRA: Govt’s plan to delete ‘PR’ in Malaysia’s citizenship laws will affect ‘red IC’ natives’ children the most, remove foundlings’ protection

• 21 Mar 2024: Human rights advocates seek audience with PMX and Cabinet on the proposed citizenship amendments

• 19 Dec 2023: Abandon regressive citizenship amendments – 60 NGOs

• 28 Aug 2023: Civil Societies urges Home Minister to share findings, mitigation of concerns with the Open Letter 

 

International engagement

 

AWL's work on statelessness has extended to the international stage. AWL's Committee Lead was a panellist at the 2024 World Conference on Statelessness held in Kuala Lumpur (26–29 February 2024, Taylor's University), the largest global convening of the statelessness field, attended by 450 in-person participants and over 100 online participants from 50 countries.

 

Jasmine Wong spoke on the panel "Litigating Citizenship and Identity Documents," sharing AWL's experience of constitutional litigation and judicial trends in Malaysia with a global audience of advocates, academics, and persons with lived experience of statelessness.

 

Committee Lead: Jasmine Wong

 

Get involved

 

Members interested in contributing to citizenship and statelessness work, whether through legal research, case support, advocacy, or coalition engagement, are welcome to contact the committee.