Human Rights And Statelessness I N P E N I N S U L AR M AL AYS I A Federal Constitution (Ainaa Aiman and Larissa Lumandan, 2020). As for Than Siew Beng’s adopted son, Alexander Than Keng Mun, the court found that it was not possible to determine the teenager’s lineage as there was no information in the birth certificate regarding his biological parents and he had not proven he was not a citizen of any other country (Lim, 2017). Another cause of statelessness amongst adopted children is adopted parents not going through the formal adoption procedure due to the lack of awareness and access to information towards formal adoption processes. Student Wong Yoong Jau, an adopted child, whose adopted parents mistakenly registered her as their biological child, has been waiting for her citizenship application to be reviewed since 2015 (Wani Muthiah, 2021). There is also the case of Monteiro, whose citizenship application was rejected due to a lack of documentation on her adoption as her parents did not go through the ‘proper’ adoption procedure (Nur Khairah Alegria Suner, 2017). A Malaysian couple from Penang, who also mistakenly registered their adopted child as their own, had to surrender their child’s initial birth certificate. After obtaining an adoption order, their child subsequently became stateless (Lim, 2021, November 19). 2.3.2 Scale of issue Stateless adopted children are discriminated against due to their noncitizen status when it comes to accessing and remaining in public schools. E. T., a stateless child adopted by Malaysian parents whose citizenship application was still under review, was asked by the Johor Education Department to show his student pass and passport in order to continue schooling (“Some stateless children”, 2021). The Penang state government identified nineteen stateless children unable to go to school because their adopted families could not produce their passports as they had no contact with the children’s birth mothers (“Some stateless children”, 2021). Darshana’s parents, who adopted her, said that when they went to the nearby school they were told both by the school and immigration authorities that due to her status as a non-citizen she must have a passport before she could be accepted (Sarban Singh, 2018). Wong, who scored well in the STPM exams, is worried that she would not be able to pursue tertiary studies because of her unresolved citizenship status which is still under review (Wani Muthiah, 2021). 34