UPHOLD GENDER EQUALITY, SAYS CHEW

KUALA LUMPUR, June 5 (Bernama) -- Policies and laws pertaining to foreign
spouses, particularly the Immigration Act, must be reviewed and amended to
uphold the principle of non-discrimination and gender equality in the country.

Women, Family and Community Development Deputy Minister Chew
Mei Fun said foreign spouses of Malaysian men and women faced challenges on
several issues.

The issues involved the right to stay, work and rights of their children.

"Many of them need to go through hassles in getting citizenship, visa and PR
(permanent residence status), because of uncertainties over a lot of things,
especially in terms of the Immigration Act and ways of handling cases," Chew
told reporters after officiating the Forum and Workshop on Foreign Spouses in
Malaysia here Friday.

Chew said the forum, jointly organised by Wanita MCA, a political party, and
Institute of Strategic Analysis and Policy Research, was aimed at addressing
such long overdue issues and drafting a memorandum on foreign spouses
in Malaysia.

The memorandum would be handed over to the home ministry soon.

On another note, Women Aid Organisation (WHO) executive director Ivy Josiah
said many foreign wives had approached WHO on issues involving domestic
violence.

"In a domestic violence situation, the husband is not going to co-operate in
extending the wife's visa, probably because she has made a police complaint
and he is being investigated for a crime," she said.

Josiah said foreign mothers also felt that they did not get a level-playing
field to obtain custody of their children, resulting in cases of foreign mothers
abducting their children and running away out of sheer desperation.

"Malaysian women with foreign spouses, who gave birth outside Malaysia did
not
enjoy similar rights as their Malaysian male counterparts who could confer
citizenship to their children, irrespective of their place of birth," she added.

She said this was a direct discrimination as they (Malaysian women) should
enjoy the same rights as the Malaysian men.

MCA Public Service and Complaints Department head Michael Chong said
there were also cases of foreign spouses who could not admit their children in
public hospitals, simply because they were not citizens.

"They have to wait for their spouses to come. This is against humanity," he
said.

However, Chong, who is also home ministry advisor, said the current
minister
(Hishammuddin Hussein) was very sympathetic towards the situation.

He said that as the forum was the best place to obtain feedback (on the
situation), he would be working closely with non-governmental organisations to
effectively come to a solution to overcome the problem.

-- BERNAMA