'Race-free' birth certificates were once issued

(Malaysiakini) Some birth certificates issued by the National Registration Department (NRD) from 1996-2000 did not record the ethnicity of the children.

Malaysiakini has obtained three birth certificates registered in the peninsula in 1996 (right), 1998 and 2000 (below) respectively.

Unlike the document now in use, these did not include the race and religion of the child.

The only information required for the child are the full name, place of birth, date and time of birth, and gender.

The format of the birth certificate in 2000 is also slightly different from the those of the 1990s.

The birth certificates in 1996 and 1998 recorded the race of both parents, but the birth certificate in 2000 records both their race and religion.

The reasons for the variations in format are not known, as Malaysiakini is waiting for the NRD's response.

The issue of ethnicity in birth certificate registration and other official forms was raised after Subang Jaya assemblyperson Hannah Yeoh and her husband Ramachandran Muniandy were unable to register their daughter's race as 'Anak Malaysia'.

According to the couple, the NRD officer had rejected their request, leading them to choose 'Chinese' as the race of their daughter Shay Adora Ram.

The NRD has since explained that the race of the child must be taken from either parent in a mixed marriage, and that no 'mixed-race' registration is allowed.

In Shay's birth certificate, registered on June 7, 2011, both her race and religion are recorded.

'Race' column stamped manually

Malaysiakini has also obtained a copy of Shay's birth certificate application form.

There is no printed column for the child's race and religion on the form. Instead, the additional columns were manually stamped on the form (right) by the officer.

The couple had initially filled in 'Anak Malaysia' but this was crossed out by the officer and replaced with 'Cina'.

It is not known why the columns for race and religion are not printed on the form, but were manually stamped on it.

Both Ramachandran and Yeoh had filled 'Anak Malaysia' to indicate their own race, but this was not objected to by the officer, who marked the columns with ticks.

Yeoh said an appeal letter was sent to the NRD, with copies to the prime minister and home minister, last Tuesday.

“No update so far. We are still waiting for their reply,” she said when contacted.