KUALA LUMPUR - Authorities have been urged to simplify procedures for registering undocumented children living in the alleys of Chow Kit, as many of them lack birth certificates and identification documents due to complex family circumstances.
Food For Gelandangan founder Mohd Azizan Zainal Abidin said flexibility is needed from the Federal Territories Islamic Religious Department (Jawi) to address cases involving unregistered or invalid marriages, which often complicate efforts to verify a child’s legal status.
He said many of the affected children come from families where marriages were never formally registered or where pregnancies occurred outside of marriage.
“Under the normal procedure, Jawi will first conduct an investigation to verify the status of the marriage and subsequently enable the National Registration Department (JPN) to process the relevant documents.
“So starting at the Jawi level, the management system needs to be improved and flexibility should be given for cases like these so that the investigation process can be carried out more easily.
“After the investigation is completed, the marriage needs to be verified. Once the marriage has been verified, only then can the status of the child who does not have identification documents be processed,” he said.
Azizan said the process at JPN should also be simplified once Jawi has confirmed the marriage status.
He said verification documents issued by Jawi should be sufficient for the department to proceed with processing the child’s identity status without lengthy procedures.
He added that faster processes and flexibility from Jawi and JPM would help ensure the affected families receive assistance from the Social Welfare Department, including financial aid or support from Baitulmal.
“Once all these matters are settled, I believe it can resolve the existing problems, provided there is room for flexibility from all stakeholders in handling cases like this,” he said.
Earlier this week, Sinar highlighted the issue of children living in the alleys of Chow Kit in Kuala Lumpur who do not possess birth certificates or identity cards.