Malaysians are in high spirits after a group of Malaysian mothers had overturned a discriminatory Malaysian law that affected mothers with foreign-born children.

The Family Frontiers group together with six Malaysians had filed a lawsuit in December 2020 to repel the decade-old law which the government had argued that the court had no jurisdiction to handle the case.

After the victory, the group said that the Kuala Lumpur High Court had ruled in favour of them and ordered that Malaysian mothers have the same right as the men to pass their citizenship to their overseas-born children.

They added, “Malaysian mothers have faced family separation, along with obstacles to accessing residency, education, health care and social services for their children. Today’s ruling is a monumental step in the direction of gender equality.”

Malaysians on social media had applauded their courage’s battle for their rights.

Zhee Qi on Twitter wrote that the latest stream of good news keeps piling on. Malaysian mothers able to get their children citizenship shows that the people’s voices are immensely powerful.

Lim Wei Jiet had also commented, “I’m glad that this blatant discrimination against women has been quashed.”

He explained that Malaysian women and children faced discrimination and the government had once regarded women as mere ‘property’.

Segambut Member of Parliament, Hannah Yeoh, requested that the Home Ministry must not appeal and immediately process the necessary ID documents to reflect this victory.

“Today is a big day for Malaysian women and their children born abroad,” she said.

Malaysia is one of 25 nations that do not give equal rights in citizenship to mothers.

Under the previous law, Malaysian fathers had the automatic right to confer citizenship to their foreign-born children.

-THE MALAYSIA VOICE