Special committee helped 95 ‘stateless’ folk obtain citizenship — Minister

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Fatimah (third right) presents a birth certificate to one of the successful applicants. Looking on are Harden (second right) and Rosey (left).

DALAT: The Special Committee on Citizenship Status has helped 95 ‘stateless’ individuals in Sarawak obtain citizenship since its establishment in 2016.

According to Welfare, Community Well Being, Women, Family and Childhood Development Minister Dato Sri Fatimah Abdullah, these individuals are the successful ones among the total of 417 applicants registered between November 2016 and April this year.

“Before this, an application made under Article 15A of the Federal Constitution would take about five years.

“This taskforce has successfully reduced the approval period for applications. This is the state government’s commitment in ensuring that the welfare of the people, especially the schoolchildren, is taken care of,” she spoke during the presentation of birth certificates to the successful applicants yesterday, where Assistant Minister of Community Well Being Datuk Francis Harden Hollis and Assistant Minister of Women, Family and Childhood Development Rosey Yunus were also present.

Fatimah, who is Dalat assemblywoman, stressed that without legitimate citizenship status, schoolchildren could not receive assistance such as meals, school uniforms and text books.

She said the special committee would meet every week to update its list of applicants.

“The National Registration Department (NRD) Sarawak works with the state Education Department to identify students without citizenship.

“The state Education Department, through this cooperation and also the students’ database application, had found out that as at December 2017, 592 students did not have citizenship,” she said.

Fatimah said as part of the efforts in resolving this problem, a mobile registration operation would be conducted from this year onwards at schools encountering this problem.

The minister said this operation would help students in their application and provide counselling to them, particularly on matters related to the approval of the citizenship status.