KUALA LUMPUR: For seven years, stateless B. Rani was sent from pillar to post as she tried to secure documents to prove that she was born here.

She finally managed to obtain, among others, her birth certificate and record of birth at a hospital here to be submitted with her application for citizenship.

What she did not know was that her efforts would prove futile for reasons beyond her control.

At the point of submission to the National Registration Department (NRD), she was told that there were mistakes in the form that had been issued to her by the department.

The columns were wrongly filled: Rani’s name was typed where her father’s name should have been, his name was typed where her mother’s name should have been and her mother’s name was typed in the date of birth column.
Here is the shocker: The errors were made by the department.

Rani said the officer proceeded to give her a new set of documents for re-submission.

She was back to square one — seven years of hard work had come to nought in five minutes.

Although both her parents and all her siblings have birth certificates and MyKad, she has yet to obtain hers.

"I don’t know why it is so difficult for me. Maybe I’m fated to die as a stateless person," she said.

Hers is not an isolated case.

Klang Consumer Association president A. Devadass said he had come across 50 people without birth certificates in the Klang Valley over the past three months.

"We urge the government to view the matter seriously and take action to solve it. For example, these stateless people can be given temporary amnesty while their papers are being processed."

He said the process of obtaining birth certificates and MyKad took very long and was complicated by endless red tape.

Malaysian Tamil Youth Bell Club former national vice-president M. Gnanasegaran said while foreigners born abroad were easily awarded permanent resident status, he knew of at least 50 families who have lived here for three generations who were stateless.

"It is embarrassing for a country to celebrate 50 years’ of independence while there are still a large number of residents who have been stateless for generations," he said.

He chided non-governmental organisations and elected Indian representatives for not addressing the matter.

"They must take action and not simply sit and watch while the problems persist," he said, adding that rude and unhelpful officers further complicated matters.

Meanwhile, Human Rights Commissioner Datuk N. Siva Subramaniam estimated that four children in every estate were without birth certificates.

He said those who went to the NRD were often pushed around as they were mostly illiterate and poor.

"It takes years to get the documents from the NRD. I don’t understand why it takes so long for them to solve such a simple problem," he said, adding that this year alone, he had received 12 such cases.

He said the NRD could help solve the problem by going to the estates and registering stateless people.

MIC Youth Social and Welfare Bureau chief T. Mohan said he had come across 1,000 such cases over the past three years.

However, only 30 per cent of those whom he had helped managed to get their birth certificates.

"Sometimes, the person cannot understand the officer. There should be special counters and officers who can speak the native tongue of the person to speed up the process," he said..

"We conducted surveys in four Tamil schools in Puchong and found 50 pupils without birth certificates. What about those who left school and those who have yet to go to school?"

He estimated that there were no less than 20,000 Indians in the country who did not have birth certificates.

Mohan plans to form a special team to go to every state nationwide to help register people without birth certificates.

Deputy Home Affairs Minister Datuk Tan Chai Ho said the process of obtaining birth certificates was faster for applicants with sufficient evidence.

He said problems began when they could not produce the documents needed, as it made it difficult to determine if the applicants were Malaysians.

"In some cases, finding the birth certificate becomes even more difficult when a clinic has closed down.

"My men have to go and talk to the village head or the community head to verify if the child was indeed born there. It takes time," he said.

As for technical errors, he said officers could amend them as long as the document had the right identity card numbers