There are few cases of adopted children which were resolved after a long,
difficult process in court. However, this legal remedy is not accessible to
everyone due to the high financial cost and low success rate. In one case,
a Selangor-born teenage boy, born to unknown biological parents, fought
for citizenship for almost seven years before winning it on 12 February
2020 (Lim, 2020, February 12). In another case, a baby born to unknown
biological parents in Kuala Lumpur was adopted by a Penang couple who
are still fighting for their child’s citizenship in court for almost three years
(Lim, 2020, November 25). Another case, Yu, born to a Malaysian father
and Indonesian mother in Penang and who was subsequently adopted,
spent more than a decade being shunted between the courts and various
government offices and finally obtained Malaysian citizenship at 11 years
old (Radzi Razak, 2019). Muhammad Aiman Hafizi Ahmad, a Malaysian
e-sports player, born to an Indonesian mother and an unknown father,
was adopted by a Malaysian couple who managed to obtain citizenship
for him after eight years through various efforts to apply for citizenship
by registration and through a judicial review (Lim, 2020, September 2).
2.4 Cases where children were born out of wedlock or before
a marriage was registered
2.4.1 Causation of statelessness
The first group are children of mixed racial or religious marriages or born
to alternative family arrangements such as single parents, foster parents,
adoptive parents, and LGBTQ+ parents. The second group are children
born to parents who were not married at the time of their birth, especially
to a non-Malaysian mother and a Malaysian father.
Statelessness amongst this group of children is caused by gender
discriminatory provisions under Section 17, Part III, Second Schedule of
the Federal Constitution that provides preferential treatment to married
couples to confer citizenship to their children. In cases of children born to
unmarried parents, especially to a non-Malaysian mother and a Malaysian
father, children are not able to acquire citizenship from the Malaysian
father. The Minister of Home Affairs also affirms that citizenship must
be conditional on a registered marriage to prevent children from being
categorised as “conceived out of wedlock or without status” (Bernama,
2022, January 22).
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