UUM Journal of Legal Studies, 13, No. 1 (January) 2022, pp: 345–380 therefore, will examine the challenges of these statelessness and stateless children in Malaysia from a legal perspective; particularly on the definitions, categories of stateless children and the importance for the country to have national laws and policies pertaining to these issues. METHODOLOGY This research has adopted a qualitative legal research method to examine several legislations, Parliamentary Hansards, research journals, reports from government, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGO) and the United Nations that were related to the issue of stateless children, particularly in Malaysia. In addition, several interviews with selected government department officials were conducted to support the research findings. The laws and policies related to the definitions and relevant aspects pertaining to stateless children were analysed with reference to the Convention on the Rights of the Children 1989 (hereinafter CRC 1989), the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Person (hereinafter the 1954 Convention) and the 1961 Convention on Reduction to Statelessness (hereinafter the 1961 Convention). BACKGROUND A Brief Background on Statelessness Statelessness arises due to the migration and non-migration of people. A child who does not have a nationality or lost his/her nationality due to some reasons and has been living in his/her ‘own’ country for his/ her entire life, falls into a non-migration situation (1954 Convention) and is known as an unaccompanied migrant child (IOM, 2020). Even if the child crosses borders to another country for some reasons, he/ she continues to be stateless upon migration. There are numerous reasons that can account for how children come to be regarded as stateless, for instance the migratory issue which often happens in the ASEAN region. The geographical and economic pull factors of many countries such as those often linked to Malaysia, 346

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