Written by YAM Tunku Zain Al-‘Abidin ibni Tuanku Muhriz, Founding President of the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (IDEAS).

Let me tell you about Susie*. She’s 13 years old. She was born in Seremban, and has a birth certificate that says so. She’s lived there and Kuala Lumpur all her life. She loves playing Minecraft and Roblox, and wears oversized t-shirts. I met her in my political science class where I was a guest teacher: I serve on the school’s board of governors.

At first I thought she was anti-social because she always had giant headphones on, but then I learned she was highly sensitive to stimuli, and the headphones endowed security and safety so she could concentrate and learn better. (That was a whole new learning experience for me!)

She was legally adopted by loving parents, and they do all the things that families do... well, nearly. One thing they cannot do is go on holiday abroad, because Susie does not have any citizenship.

Of course, she wants citizenship, and is entitled to Malaysian citizenship by operation of law – a constitutional right that is thankfully still maintained despite an attempt to amend our Federal Constitution otherwise.

However, for years her case has been shuttling around different courts while lawyers and judges keep changing.

In the meantime, she is growing up knowing that she isn’t Malaysian, without the blue MyKads that her classmates have, and is beginning to understand that when she grows up, this means that there will be other things she might not be able to do, apart from just not being able to travelling abroad.

Hearing her story, and getting to know her, I know she yearns and deserves to be Malaysian – and certainly, after my political science class, she knows more about our laws and institutions than most!

Alas! She doesn’t play football.

Let me tell you about Veronica*. She’s 22, born here to a Malaysian father and an Indonesian mother. Despite many urgings, her father refused to take her to the National Registration Department; she was only registered six years later, with her father’s name absent.

He ended up in prison, and so her mother moved from place to place with her.

When she turned 12, her mother tried to apply for her identity card, but she wasn’t eligible because her father’s name was missing. Thus she could not be officially Malaysian; and nor Indonesian since her mother’s passport had been stolen, leaving her undocumented too.

Unable to attend public school, her mother struggled to find money for tuition centres and a homeschooling programme. But when that ended, Veronica taught herself via YouTube, but she knows too what being stateless means: she cannot vote, nor study in public universities, nor travel, nor legally work.

It has been years but she is still dreaming. She has found other young people who were born and raised here, who speak the language and sing our songs, yet are treated as strangers.

This scenario is unfortunately repeated all across our country, from rural coasts and interior plantations, to urban construction sites and dilapidated flats. These children committed no crime. But unfortunately, a particular form was never filled, or a marriage was never registered, or a father never acknowledged them.

These children could achieve so much, if only the law saw them as someone.

Let me tell you about Ben*, who is 26 years old. With no recollection of his biological parents, he was legally adopted by permanent resident holders in 2011. Yet for 14 years, his repeated attempts to gain citizenship have been rejected.

However, he is an extremely rare case of a stateless person able to get a degree at a private university, thanks to the kindness of Malaysians who supported his scholarship.

He really wants to be a doctor, but because of a lack of MyKad, he has to settle for a different, lacklustre job.

Instead of wanting to treat Malaysians who are sick, he should have been good at football instead. That might have got him citizenship.

Indeed, the policy of importing foreign players and making them citizens for the purpose of national sporting success has been adopted by many countries.

Every country has their own legal processes in this regard, and international sports associations have their own criteria too.

Whether those are fair in the first place, and whether those rules are properly applied, constitute arguments on their own.

But if there was more fairness – no, even just logic – applied, there are so many children who should get citizenship first.

Having got to know some of them, I know they would make even greater contributions to our country.

This article was featured in The Start, 22 August 2025

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views or positions of IDEAS Malaysia. All opinions are the author’s own.