THIS CHAPTER LOOKS MORE CLOSELY AT RIGHT TO NATIONALITY, DOCUMENTATION AND LEGAL STATUS, RIGHT TO HEALTH, SOCIO-ECONOMIC RIGHTS AND CIVIL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS,4 AND MAKES THE FOLLOWING CALL TO ACTION TO THE GOVERNMENT AND OTHER RELEVANT STAKEHOLDERS: MALAYSIA SUHAKAM, Children’s Commissioner, Professor Dato’ Noor Aziah Mohd Awal There are various groups who are stateless or at risk of statelessness in Malaysia. In 2010, it was estimated that 66,000 of a population of 2.6 million indigenous persons were stateless or undocumented in Sarawak.5 Other groups at risk include members of the Indian Tamil community in West Malaysia,6 and the Bajau Laut in Sabah, East Malaysia: a traditionally maritime migratory people.7 There are also many Rohingya refugees in Malaysia.8 Malaysian nationality law is gender discriminatory: women, as a result of systemic and nationalised discrimination do not have equal rights to confer citizenship to their children and spouses. Children born outside Malaysia to Malaysian mothers may only acquire Malaysian citizenship at the discretion of the government by registering at a Malaysian Consulate or the National Registration Department in Malaysia and applying via Article 15(2) – citizenship by registration – which is a process fraught with delays, repeated rejections without reasons and no guarantee of approval.9 Stateless people in Malaysia are more likely to endure discrimination, marginalisation and xenophobia as a result of their exclusion from society, perpetuating their vulnerabilities and exacerbating the consequences of statelessness in time of pandemic and in times of ‘normality’. The stateless and those at risk of statelessness were, prior to COVID-19, vulnerable to human rights abuses. In the wake of COVID-19, these vulnerabilities have been sharply exacerbated. The lack of access to documentation and inability to acquire Malaysian legal identity has heightened the precarity of stateless persons and non-citizens, during the pandemic. Non-citizen spouses and children continue to face barriers to entering Malaysia due to border closures and travel restrictions. Families with special circumstances have also not been allowed into resources, and those with family members with physical and mental disabilities. It is anticipated that there will be an increase in the number of children of Malaysian women without access to citizenship because of the inability of their mothers to return to Malaysia to give birth. Along with medical facilities being less accesor restricted services, making it much harder to register births. RIGHT TO NATIONALITY, DOCUMENTATION AND LEGAL STATUS As a result of an increase in COVID-19 cases, the National Registration department switched to only allowing e-payment (debit or credit card) for registration, as opposed to cash payments.10 This is problematic as many stateless persons do not have access to the internet or a bank account. RIGHT TO HEALTH Throughout the pandemic, healthcare services have been largely inaccessible to stateless communities in Malaysia. Increased medical fees and the risk of arrest faced by undocumented migrants who seek treatment from government 11 At the beginning of the pandemic, the Ministry of Health claimed all persons, regardless of status could and should seek testing and not fear arrest or detention, however, it subsequently failed to protect those rounded up during raids by the Ministry of Defence.12 Non-citizen spouses and IMPLEMENT TEMPORARY SPECIAL MEASURES TO ENSURE ALL CHILDREN HAVE EQUAL ACCESS TO MALAYSIAN CITIZENSHIP WHEN BORN OVERSEAS, PARTICULARLY IF TRAVEL TO MALAYSIA AND MARRIAGE REGISTRATION WAS NOT POSSIBLE DUE TO BORDER CLOSURES AS A RESULT OF COVID-19. ENSURE NON-CITIZEN SPOUSES AND CHILDREN OF MALAYSIANS ARE NOT DENIED ENTRY TO MALAYSIA, BEARING IN MIND THAT LONG-TERM FAMILY SEPARATION IS NOT IN THE BEST INTEREST OF CHILDREN AND UNDERMINES THE RIGHT TO FAMILY LIFE. GUARANTEE EQUALITY AND NON-DISCRIMINATION IN COVID-19 VACCINATION SCHEMES, TESTING AND TREATMENT TO NON-CITIZEN SPOUSES AND CHILDREN OF MALAYSIANS, MIGRANTS, REFUGEES, ASYLUM SEEKERS AND STATELESS PEOPLE. GRANT ALL NON-CITIZEN CHILDREN OF MALAYSIANS AS WELL AS STATELESS CHILDREN, ACCESS TO PUBLIC EDUCATION AND HEALTHCARE FACILITIES ON AN EQUAL BASIS TO MALAYSIAN CITIZENS. accessing immigration services during the nadelays in booking appointments, sometimes for many months and appointments being highly competitive also faced these risks associated with accessing healthcare, if their visas, passes or permits had expired as a result of these delays. LISTEN TO AND CONSULT GRASSROOTS COMMUNITIES AND NGOS TO FIND SUSTAINABLE SOLUTIONS TO ADDRESS COVID-19 IMPACTS ON STATELESS COMMUNITIES AND MALAYSIAN BINATIONAL FAMILIES. SOCIO-ECONOMIC RIGHTS Exclusion from Emergency Relief: Stateless persons and non-citizens have not been included in government relief measures. However, some faith groups and civil society organisations have provided humanitarian aid to refugees, migrants and stateless people. For the Bajau Laut community, for example, the lack of documentation has meant exclusion from government relief efforts. Government food baskets were only given to those with citizenship during the MCO in April 2020 and October – December 2020. This forced NGOs to step in, but navigating the MCO order presented challenges, further complicated by an order from the government that only allowed authorities to distribute aid. The MCO 33