Sarawak gov’t must provide clear guidelines, framework on ‘K’ in MyKad

SIBU (Oct 12): It is laudable for the state cabinet to approve the proposal to allow stateless adopted children in Sarawak to receive the `K’ indicator in their identity cards to identify them as Sarawakians upon their successful Malaysian citizenship application.

While commending this move, former Bukit Assek assemblywoman Irene Chang, however, felt that the state government ought to release comprehensive, detailed guidelines and standard operating procedures (SOP) to provide a clear framework regarding the ‘K’ status for all parties involved.

She said the government also needs to enlighten the applicants who have previously applied for the ‘K’ indicator at the Immigration Department and are currently waiting for the results, on whether they should reapply.

“In the event that these existing applicants are to wait, what is the time frame before they would know if their application has been approved or otherwise,” she said in a statement.

The state government, she added, should also clarify if the ‘K’ indicator will automatically be given to new successful citizenship applicants, or if they are required to file a separate application to be recognised as ‘anak Sarawak’.

According to her, the current proposal makes no mention of the ‘K’ indicator for a child who was born illegitimately out of wedlock to a Sarawakian father and whose name is inserted into the child’s birth certificate as the biological father.

“We have a few families here whose foreign biological mothers came to Sarawak and gave birth to the children here.

“Subsequently, they abandoned the children with the Sarawakian fathers and thereafter returned to their respective countries without registering their marriage, thereby rendering these children illegitimate,” she disclosed.

Chang said these children were also not given the ‘K’ indicator in their identity cards despite being successfully registered as Malaysian citizens under Article 15A of the Federal Constitution.

“The current proposal which has been approved by the state cabinet should also include these children whose biological father is a Sarawakian with the ‘K’ indicator in his identity card,” she opined.

Thus, she called upon the ministry to resolve this matter and fine-tune all required procedures with all relevant government departments.

“This matter has been ongoing since the time I first wrote to the state secretary in 2021.

“Since then we have lost many local talents to West Malaysia and even to Singapore because they could not get proper employment here due to not having the ‘K’ indicator in their new identity card,” she said.