By Nur Ashikin Louis
KUCHING, March 8: Premier of Sarawak Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Abang Johari Tun Openg has been urged to bring up the statelessness issue in Sarawak to Prime Minister Dato Sri Ismail Sabri Yaakob.
In making the call, Women, Childhood and Community Wellbeing Development Minister Dato Sri Fatimah Abdullah disclosed that since the establishment of the Special Committee on Citizenship Status under Article 15A of the Federal Constitution, a total of 969 applications for citizenship have been received from 2016 to Oct 22, 2021.
To date, only 253 have been approved, and the rest are still under consideration.
“While waiting for the decision of the Minister of Home Affairs, these children are denied from receiving or enjoying children’s rights such as the right to education, health, employment opportunities and the opportunity to receive welfare assistance.
“Therefore, we request the Sarawak Premier to highlight this issue to the Prime Minister so that as an autonomous region, we should be given special authority to resolve this issue of citizenship at the level of our own region.
“This is very important so that these stateless children can enjoy their human rights, especially in education,” she said when speaking during the opening ceremony of the Sarawak Women’s Day 2022 celebration held at Pullman Hotel in Miri today.
She also called on the State government to consider preparing a fee subsidy for each child of a B40 family sent to a private early childhood education institution to enable working women to continue to contribute in their respective employment sectors.
Fatimah also revealed that in line with the regional status Sarawak has gained, her ministry is examining the need to redefine the term ‘women workforce’ which currently does not take into account non-paid women in the workforce or working women in the informal sector.
The ministry, she said, is also considering the best mechanism to support and retain employed women without marginalising or diminishing the importance of their role in ensuring the wellbeing, harmony and sustainability of the family institution remain preserved.
“The ministry will advocate and conduct studies to measure both the social and economic value of women’s unpaid care work, and to look into possible and relevant social support services which can enhance further the quality of their social contribution to the wellbeing of our local community,” she added. — DayakDaily
