A woman who was abandoned as a baby in Kuala Lumpur has received Malaysian citizenship after nearly 40 years of being stateless.
The woman, who goes by the name “Hashimah” on her birth certificate, is currently 39 years old, has never met her biological parents, and was never adopted.
According to the human rights organization Lawyers for Liberty (LFL), which assisted Hashimah with her application, the High Court here yesterday declared her citizenship.
Latheefa Koya and Shahid Adli Kamarudin are Hashimah’s lawyers.
When asked about this, Latheefa stated that her client sobbed when the lawyers explained what the High Court judgement meant.
“We hope that the Home Ministry will review all the cases of many abandoned children and grant them citizenship without forcing them to go to court,” Latheefa told Malay Mail.
According to a statement released by LFL today, the High Court judge Amarjeet Singh Serjit Singh based his judgement on a precedent that the Federal Court established on November 19, 2021 in favor of a 17-year-old child who was also born stateless in Kuala Lumpur and given up for adoption.
After his court bid, he was adopted by a Malaysian couple in Penang and eventually made a Malaysian citizen.
According to LFL, the High Court judge emphasized that the recent Federal Court case, known as the CCH case, has established a precedent for how the Home Ministry, NRD, and Registrar-General of Births and Deaths should handle upcoming cases involving newborns who have been abandoned.
According to LFL, the High Court also mandated that Hashimah receive a citizenship certificate and a Malaysian identification card from the National Registration Department (NRD).
When Hashimah was just a few months old, according to LFL, the police found her during a raid and discovered that her biological parents had abandoned her.
She was placed under the care of the Department of Social Welfare (JKM), which recorded her birth, according to Hashimah’s court affidavit. Her biological parents are not even mentioned on the birth certificate, which merely lists her name as “Hashimah” and her place of birth as “Kuala Lumpur”.
JKM then admitted her to a children’s home in Cheras, Kuala Lumpur, before transferring her to a JKM-run orphanage in Kuantan, Pahang, at the age of four, then to a JKM-run orphanage in Kuala Kangsar, Perak, at the age of seven.
At the age of 10, she was transferred to an orphanage and home for underprivileged children in Subang Jaya, where she remained until she was 18.
She added that she had made numerous attempts over the years to learn about her biological parents’ identities but had been unsuccessful. “As I was never adopted, I lived in orphanages throughout my entire life.”
Hashimah asserted that because her biological parents’ identities are unknown, her citizenship status is listed on her birth certificate as ‘belum ditentukan’, or undetermined. As a result, she was only able to obtain a temporary resident identity card from Malaysian authorities when she turned 18; this card expires every five years, and she had to keep renewing it.
Hashimah’s application to have her citizenship recognised by the NRD previously failed in 2012 and 2013, despite the support of the director of JKM Kuala Lumpur and the president of Rumah Amal Cheshire Selangor.
The NRD’s registrar-general of citizenship denied Hashimah’s request to be recognized as a Malaysian, which she submitted on February 25, 2020, in a letter dated July 29, 2020.
On October 19, 2020, Hashimah filed a lawsuit in the High Court of Kuala Lumpur through a judicial review application to contest the July 2020 rejection and request to be recognised as a Malaysian citizen. She named the registrar-general of citizenship, the home minister, and the Malaysian government as respondents.
Hashimah stated in her affidavit that she had spent her entire life in Malaysia and described the challenges she faced as a result of being a stateless person, such as not having a legal status and being unable to obtain official documents like a driver’s licence, passport, or legal documents for marriage.
“I will also face problems when dealing with law enforcement such as the police and immigration. Even though I am not a foreigner, I have been threatened and blackmailed by enforcement authorities many times over the years due to my lack of documentation,” she said, adding that the refusal to declare her as a citizen meant she would face a bleak future and be hampered in employment opportunities.
In the affidavit to support her lawsuit, Hashimah also highlighted that she was also charged a foreigner rate at government hospitals, and said her children would be stateless and suffer the same hardships if she has any children in the future.
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