SINGAPORE ALLOWS MIXED PARENTS TO DECIDE CHILD’S RACE

By Zakaria Abdul Wahab

SINGAPORE, Jan 13 (Bernama) – The Singapore Government is allowing parents of different races to decide on their child’s race during registration of birth.

Previously, under the city-state’s general rule, although the government did
not assign race to a person, such a child would be registered as having the race
of the father.

Senior Minister of State for Law and Home Affairs Associate Prof Ho Peng Kee
told Parliament Tuesday, the rule was revised after the government recognised
that the diversity of Singapore’s racial demographics had increased in recent
years, due to the inflow of immigrants and the rise in the number of locals
marrying foreigners.

The new rule which came into effect on Jan 2, this year, would give parents
of different races the flexibility and choice to decide how their child’s race
should be recorded, he said.

Ho said the government would accept a race declaration, so long as it fell
within generally accepted notions of ethnicity by lineage.

For example, he said, a Caucasian-Chinese couple might decide to have their
child’s race recorded as Caucasian, Chinese or Eurasian.

-– BERNAMA