source<\/a><\/p>\nStory and photo by MEERA VIJAYAN<\/p>\n
meera@thestar.com.my<\/p>\n
JOHOR BARU: Restaurant worker and single mother Stella Caroline Michael has six children, none of whom have ever gone to school as they do not have any identification documents. As her parents did not bother getting her a birth certificate or even an identity card (IC), she has not been able to get any proper documents for her children, even though all of them were born in the country.<\/p>\n
Stella, 35, said she never tried to obtain birth certificates for her children as people had frightened her by telling her that the Welfare Department would take away her children. According to Stella, she only tried to obtain her IC when she realised that her children needed birth certificates to be registered at school, but claimed she was always given the run-around.<\/p>\n
Documentation: Stella and her six children watching MIC Pasir Gudang deputy Youth leader P. Murugan fill up application forms for their identity cards in Johor Baru recently.<\/p>\n
“Most recently, I was told I would have to wait at least another two years to get my IC as I was late in applying. “What will happen if they don’t go to school,” she asked of her six children aged between three and 11 years.<\/p>\n
Stella, who studied until Year Six, was among hundreds who thronged the Sri Maha Mariamman temple in the city, hoping to get their birth certificate and IC problems solved by the MIC.<\/p>\n
Another applicant was K. Nyanavel, 22, who said he was illiterate as he had never been to school.<\/p>\n
When he was born, his mother was ill with a hole in her heart and had not bothered to register his birth. “Over the years, people promised to help, but nothing has ever worked out,” he said, adding that he started work at his uncle’s mechanic shop repairing motorcycles at the age of 10.<\/p>\n
A. Padmadevi, 30, said she felt like a third-class citizen in her own country as she was unable to find work, apply for loans, or even get married without her IC, despite doing well in her studies.\u00a0 “My parents enrolled me in school under a student pass, but I had to go to India after my secondary school as the Immigration Department said I could not stay here any longer. I came back in 2001 on a visa to look after my mother,” she said, adding that she gave tuition to support her family.<\/p>\n
State MIC Youth deputy chief B. Pannir Selvam said that 200 applications were received that day. According to him, MIC Youth would assist the people in filling up the application forms, submit them and follow up until the end.”We are not doing this because of the elections. Our work will continue even after the elections,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This is part of the MIC Youth nationwide tour to help those without birth certificate to apply for one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[112,24],"class_list":["post-1367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-indian","tag-discrimination","tag-mic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1367\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}