On Malaysian men and their foreign wives

Malaysians marrying foreign women urged to register with NRD

By HAMDAN RAJA ABDULLAH

MUAR: The Home Affairs Ministry has once again advised those who marry foreign women to go personally to the National Registration Department to register.

Its deputy minister Datuk Tan Chai Ho said they should never seek the services of middlemen who could be members of syndicates, which preyed on Malaysians seeking foreign wives.

He said the authorities has identified one such syndicate, which issued fake marriage certificates to married couples and the marriages were also not recorded with the department.

"We have warned Malaysian men who wanted to marry foreign women to go personally to the department to register their marriage.

"This way their children will have Malaysian birth certificates and will be regarded as Malaysians," he said after attending a gathering here on Wednesday night.

Tan said those who married through the middlemen - and later found their children could not apply for birth certificates - could apply to adopt the children.

He said through this way the children would be given permanent residence status while at the same time the couples could apply for marriage certificates from the department.

He said unless the fathers adopted the children, the children would be named after their mothers and would have the same citizenship as that of their mothers.

When it comes to recognizing marriages between Malaysians and their foreign spouses and the rights that ought to come with any marriage, Malaysia is sooooo backward.

Why should children be the victims of their parents' mistakes? Why should couples be forced to "adopt" their own children just to correct a mistake? Afterall the father is known to be a Malaysian, and the "mistake" that was made (by marrying through a middlemen) was easily rectified by re-registering with the NRD.

This statement, "unless the fathers adopted the children, the children would be named after their mothers and would have the same citizenship as that of their mothers" has got to be the most ludicrous I have heard. Does that mean even when the father claims that the children are his, they are still only allowed to carry their mother's name unless he officially adopts them? Change the laws to reflect the realities of the now common marriages between Malaysians and foreigners occuring in the country!