2019 D Statelessness & Citizenship Review 1(1) Children of ‘Mixed’ Marriages or Alternative Families and Cases Where Children Are Born Out of Wedlock or before a Marriage Was Registered This category brings together cases involving stateless children where their entitlement to Malaysian citizenship arises from the fact that they were: (a) Born of parents where the father is a Malaysian citizen and the mother is not; and (b) Born of parents who were not legally married at the time of their birth. It is important to note that these legal qualifications entrench gender discrimination in Malaysian citizenship law, providing preferential treatment to married couples and, where couples are not married, denying children the opportunity to acquire citizenship by descent from their father. Twenty of the 60 cases unearthed in this study involved children who are stateless because of the marital or lack of marital status of their parents or the timing of the legal recognition of the marriage. These circumstances arise due to various reasons including: the divorce of the first marriage was not finalised, delaying the second marriage; the parents did not know the importance of legitimising/registering the marriage (even though a customary or religious marriage, or a marriage in a foreign place had taken place) before a child was born; and/or the parents had never been married not knowing the significance of marriage to a child’s citizenship. In reviewing the cases below, it is important to understand that like the above categories, there is often no question that the child has a genuine and effective link to Malaysia. These links are substantiated by the fact that a child is born in Malaysia and/or born to one Malaysian parent. Still, some legal practitioners will point to the gendered restriction that the child’s citizenship follows the mother where the child is considered ‘illegitimate’. Where the child is born in Malaysia however and is de jure stateless, this is all that matters. The question of whether or not the child has a ‘blood’ right to citizenship is irrelevant under the Federal Constitution. As long as the child is born in Malaysia, and is not a citizen of any other country, that is all that is needed to gain citizenship by operation of law. Two subcategories will be explored below: children of mixed marriages or alternative families and children born out of wedlock or before a marriage was registered. 1 Children of Mixed Marriages or Alternative Families Children born to alternative family arrangements or born outside of Malaysia to married parents where the mother is a Malaysian citizen and a father who is not a Malaysian citizen may find themselves stateless. One NGO described cases arising from children born in alternative family situations involving non-Muslim persons in Malaysia. 92 Chinese persons are not able to have multiple marriages registered or engage in polygamy (Muslims are legally permitted to have multiple marriages). Despite this formal restriction, some Chinese men did have relationships with persons they were not formally married to but customarily married to and had children with multiple wives. 92 Appendix Table 3, Interview with 6NGO. 114