Law & Behold #45: Citizenship, Statelessness, Abandoned Children

Law & Behold is a monthly series which aims to arm Malaysians with constitutional literacy, and is done in collaboration with The Malaysian Bar, the University of Malaya's Faculty of Law, and the Malaysian Centre for Constitutionalism and Human Rights (MCCHR). This month, we speak to lawyers Larissa Ann Louis (Hakita) and Simon Siah (Lawyer Kamek for Change), who are both actively working to resolve issues on statelessness in Malaysia. Who are considered stateless in Malaysia, and what rights are denied to them? What legal safeguards are there in the Federal Constitution against statelessness, and how can someone who has been deemed stateless through no fault of their own - especially children - attempt to obtain Malaysian citizenship? We discuss what law and policy reforms on citizenship are needed, so that we can address the endless cycle of statelessness in Malaysia.

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