Statelessness is a widespread phenomenon in Malaysia, which is not restricted to a specific community or area. While ascertaining the exact number of people affected by statelessness in the country remains a challenge, the factors or causes rendering them stateless are similar to a certain extent. Based on DHRRA’s mapping and registration exercise, the stateless persons in the country can be classified into the following 7 categories: i. Persons who arrived or born before Independence (31 August 1957) or Malaysia Day (16thSeptember 1963) ii. Persons rendered stateless by gender unequal provisions in Nationality Law - Children born out of legal wedlock to Malaysian father - Children born to Malaysian women overseas iii. Abandoned children and foundlings iv. Stateless adopted children v. Mobile and semi nomadic Sama Bajau vi. Indigenous people (Orang Asli/Asal) vii. Multigenerational migrants and refugees 3.1 Persons who arrived or born before Independence (31 August 1957) or Malaysia Day (16th September 1963) Article 16 of the Federal Constitution grants citizenships to persons born in the Federation of Malaya before Independence Day in 1957. This includes the vast number of Indian and Chinese migrants who arrived in Malaya pre-independence and their descendants. Though these communities and their descendants were entitled to acquire Malaysian citizenship under the Federal Constitution after independence, due to the lack of awareness of the importance of legal documents many of them failed to register their marriages and the births of their children. Living in remote plantations, they could avail basic welfare without having the necessary legal documents and did not realize the importance of such documents until after their estates were taken over by the government and they were forced to move out. The scenario of people rendered stateless under this category is more prevalent among the Malaysian Indian community. In 2018, DHRRA Malaysia successfully assisted 99 years old Madam Kuppamah to get her citizenship approval certificate after she submitted her 11th application to NRD. She was born in Malaysia to parents who were brought in from India during British colonization to Malaya in the early 1900s to build railway track. Her marriage was short lived as her husband passed away when she was just 30 years old. She served as a part time educator in Tamil school to sustain her living. DHRRA Malaysia supported in paying for her citizenship approval fee amounting RM200. Madam Kuppamah’s is not an isolated case. Based on DHRRA’s experience, there are many others like her who live stateless life despite residing in Malaysia pre-independence. Many are only issued PR identity documents. Those of them who had applied for citizenship were not successful in getting citizenship despite multiple citizenship application and interviews at the NRD. Insufficient evidence to support their application due to displacements of workers from the plantations/estates, low language literacy and petty criminal records from pre-independence period are some of the factors that affect their citizenship application. On the other hand, DHRRA observed that the stateless Chinese cases are not as deep rooted as cases of stateless Indians in West Malaysia. Only a handful of stateless persons of Chinese origin are those who had arrived pre-independence and remained stateless since then. On the contrary, an increasing number of the younger generations of Malaysian Chinese are facing issue of statelessness. One of the main factors contributing to the increase is the inability of Malaysian Chinese father married to foreign mothers with invalid or expired visas DHRRA Malaysia Page 10 of 29