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By Shikin Louis
KUCHING, June 20: The Sarawak government is looking into resolving some issues with regards to the granting of the ‘K’ indicator in the MyKad for adopted children in the State.
Sarawak Minister for Women, Early Childhood and Community Wellbeing Development Dato Sri Fatimah Abdullah noted that there are many cases where adopted children in Sarawak had been granted Malaysian citizenship but they are denied of the ‘K’ status on their MyKads.
She explained that the ‘K’ indicator for Sarawakians is based on conditions set by the National Registration Department (JPN) according to the First Schedule and Schedule 1A of Subregulation 5(2) of the National Registration Regulations 1990 whereby at least one of the parents must be a ‘K’ holder.
The ‘K’ status cannot be granted automatically to adopted children because it is subject to the information of their biological parents in the child’s original birth certificate.
“The problem is that most of these children do not know their own biological parents as they have been abandoned since birth and placed in orphanages. They applied for and have been granted Malaysian citizenship but they cannot get the ‘K’ indicator due to the law stating that it must be subject to their biological parents.
“Thus, this is the area that we want to scrutinise and finetune so that the process and procedure for this sort of cases is not left hanging. Presently, these cases are grouped under ‘lain-lain’ (other cases).
“We realised that these children need the ‘K’ indicator in order to apply for education scholarships offered by Sarawak Foundation or apply for job offered to Sarawakians,” she told the press after the presentation ceremony of Temporary Identification Documents (DSITKS) to stateless individuals in Sarawak at Community Social Support Centre (CSSC) Kuching here today.
Fatimah further stated that her ministry wishes to propose for the ‘keberadaan’ or existence of a child in Sarawak as a factor in granting the ‘K’ status.
“For an example, I adopted a baby from the orphanage and this baby’s existence in Sarawak could not be determined. Thus, what I could do is I apply for guardianship on the baby first. After at least two years, I could apply for adoption process.”
Earlier in her speech, Fatimah mentioned that the ministry will conduct a workshop to deliberate on the guidelines and processes of granting this ‘K’ indicator in MyKads and hope to be able to implement it by August this year.
She presented the temporary documents to 24 stateless children from Kuching and Serian divisions today. — DayakDaily
