Malaysian mums secure automatic citizenship for overseas-born children

The settlement, however, excludes adult children, leaving many without citizenship rights

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Plaintiffs in a case challenging a law preventing Malaysian women passing their citizenship on to overseas-born children outside the Kuala Lumpur High Court. Photo: AFP/Family Frontiers

Published: 6:28pm, 10 Mar 2025Updated: 2:44pm, 11 Mar 2025

Malaysian mothers won a bittersweet victory on Monday after a court settlement granted citizenship rights to their overseas-born children aged 18 and younger but excluded adult children, leaving many still in legal limbo.

Gender discrimination was at the centre of the four-year court battle, brought by a family-rights group and several mothers against the government to allow automatic Malaysian citizenship for their foreign-born children.

Without that recognition, children cannot attend state-funded schools, face hurdles finding jobs, and in many cases end up effectively stateless, even if they lived much of their lives in Malaysia, which does not recognise dual citizenship.

The government’s decision on Monday came as part of a settlement deal with rights group Family Frontiers, which filed a constitutional challenge in 2020 alongside a group of mothers, seeking to ensure Malaysian women married to foreign spouses are given the same rights as Malaysian men to pass on citizenship to children born overseas.

The government has not commented on the case.

The settlement followed amendments to citizenship clauses to the federal constitution, which were unanimously passed by parliament but have yet to be enforced.