‘40,000 people in Sabah don’t have birth certificates’

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KUALA LUMPUR: Approximately 40,000 people in Sabah, including 4,000 children in Semporna, are facing documentation issues as they do not have birth certificates, Deputy Home Minister Datuk Wira Abu Seman Yusop said.

He said these issues were mostly caused by late registration of birth certificate or identity card and the fact that the national education system did not allow children without any identification document to enter school.

Abu Seman said the late registration of birth certificate occurred due to the lack of awareness among the local residents on the importance to register the birth of their children on time.

“They usually prefer to wait for the National Registration Department’s mobile unit to come to their places so that they don’t have to pay the cost of going to the nearest NRD office to register the birth of their children.

“Some of them didn’t even have marriage certificate as they were married under customary law or were married to foreigners,” he said in a statement here yesterday.

Abu Seman said the late registration of identity card, however, was often associated with the problem to obtain confirmation from the Magistrate Court before applying for identity card, to wait for court decision for verification and the unknown status of the child.

“Besides, infrastructure and geographical factors also contributed to the issues of children without birth certificates and identity cards,” he said.

Meanwhile, Abu Seman also commented on his two-day visit to Semporna to monitor the NRD’s outreach programme to deal with people who do not have birth certificates and identity cards.

He said since the launch of the programme on Feb 28 last year, a total of 569 children had registered to get birth certificates, while 480 other children aged 12 and above, who already obtained their birth certificates, had registered to get their respective identity cards.

“Seventy-three foreigners had also registered for citizenship status and the programme will continue until the problems resolved,” he added. — Bernama