registering their marriage later (Bunyan, 2021). These cases highlight
the inconsistencies of civil and Islamic laws for Malaysian Muslim and
non-Muslim couples on the requirement of marital status for citizenship
conferment for their children.
There have been reported cases of statelessness for children born in
mixed marriages. A Siamese teenager born to a Malaysian father and a
Thai mother remains stateless, even though her siblings have citizenship.
Her citizenship application was rejected despite previously owning a birth
certificate and a Malaysian passport (“Remaja keturunan Siam”, 2010).
2.4.2 Scale of issue
The Home Minister revealed that, based on JPN’s records as of 25 February
2018, 12,667 children with a Malaysian father and a non-Malaysian mother
were denied citizenship on grounds that their parents’ marriage was not
registered (“MP shocked”, 2018).
2.5 Children born outside of Malaysia to a Malaysian mother
and a non-Malaysian father
2.5.1 Causation of statelessness
Gender discriminatory provisions in citizenship laws is the major cause for
children born outside of Malaysia to Malaysian mothers and non-Malaysian
fathers to become stateless. This is because Malaysian mothers married
to non-Malaysian fathers cannot confer their Malaysian citizenship to
their children. Malaysia is one of 25 countries that do not give mothers
and fathers equal rights to pass their nationality to their children (Reuters
2021). Two constitutional provisions, Section 1(b) and Section 1(c) of the
Second Schedule’s Part II, are discriminatory to Malaysian women as these
provisions only expressly allow Malaysian fathers to pass on citizenship
to their children born abroad (Lim, 2021, December 22).
2.5.2 Scale of issue
The Home Minister revealed that only 21 out of 2,352 citizenship
applications made by Malaysian mothers for their children between
37