Since I’ve been going out with Nil in 2004, I have been telling people left and right that Malaysian laws are patriarchal in nature to the point of being discriminatory to its female citizens. I even wrote to The Star newspaper regarding the matter of my passing my citizenship to my unborn child (see here) (my first pregnancy in 2008). But people were sceptical; some even brushed it aside because they were not part of the statistics. And as the years pass, the number of Malaysian women marrying foreigners increased and before I know it, I’m suddenly seeing friends, friends or friends getting married OR thinking of tying the knot with foreigners. Now before you think that majority of these ladies are marrying unskilled men, think again. Many of them out there are married to highly skilled, if not educated and experienced as well, men who can contribute to our country’s economy.

YET, they find it hard to stay on for a number of years or even consider Malaysia as their home – Nil and myself included. It’s not that we didn’t try; we did and frankly, the red tape was STUPID and UNNECESSARY. If we were in France, I would have gotten my carte de sejour or PR without having to wait for a year OR without me having to find a job. The logic is it’s a family unit you’re dealing with and it’s stressful to have to go through all that red tape, not able to contribute to your family unit OR even stay with them while you’re going through all these hoops and loops. Besides, the officers who go through these paper – it is believed and assumed – as not as stupid as to just blindly authorize carte de sejours left and right. They require documents (of anything and everything), analyse the marriage and so forth. If there are children (like in our case), the process is even faster because lets be honest – NO ONE has children in a marriage of convenience because children don’t make things convenient!

Anyway, due to Rais Yatim’s comment on mixed marriages, finally, someone says it for what it is here (click on the link for the full article):

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“There are Malaysian women whose foreign husbands faced delays of up to 10 years before they could obtain PR status. But to obtain PR, the husbands need to be working, so many are caught in a no-win situation,” she says.

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MCA Public Services and Complaints Depart­ment head Datuk Michael Chong concurs.

“Many foreign husbands have been awarded PR status but some are too impatient. They are not aware of the due process in applying for PR. They think you can get it straight away. It is more complex for foreign husbands because we have to be careful that Malaysian women do not get cheated by foreign men who want Malaysian PR.”

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However, Bina Ramanand, co-ordinator of Foreign Spouses Support Group (FSSG), argues that in reality, the implementation of the immigration laws is still plagued by delays and difficulties.

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The FSSG proposes that foreign spouses of both sexes be awarded automatic PR status upon two years’ stay in Malaysia and the right to work immediately.

This is especially important for a country where women make up 46% of the workforce and where up to 75% of the student population at tertiary level are female.

“Women play an important role in the country’s human resource. We should not punish Malaysian women for their choice of partner; we should celebrate the diversity. It also goes against the grain of what modern Malaysia is all about – a mingling of different groups of people who come from different parts of the world,” says Josiah.

What convinced me even more to not bother at all about making Malaysia our home was what one of the women interviewed for the article mentioned about her own Malaysian-PR-for-my-foreign-hubby journey.

“We were told by the officer at the counter: ‘You are not eligible. If it is a Malaysian man married to a foreign wife canlah. We are going to reject this and you can come and appeal.’”

Not only did that statement (by the officer) reeked of self-righteousness, it was clearly discriminatory!

Now, if according to Michael Chong’s logic – that women need ‘extra’ protection to avoid getting cheated – then what about the men? Does he (and the others in the government) feel that just because they have balls down south, they cannot have wool pulled over their eyes? Hm, I still don’t get it lor – why should men have it “easier” than women when it comes to staying together as a family unit in one country? Yes, you read that right – I don’t see this as the problem of “my hubby needs a PR”. No, it is the problem of “my son/daughter needs his/her father” OR “my family needs a PR to stay together”.

*sigh*

If anything, we’re still living in the Dark Ages. Now, make no mistake, Singapore actually had a similar ruling to Malaysia on this issue as well. BUT in 2004, the Singaporean government made an amendment to the constitution granting Singaporean women the right to transmit their citizenship to their children who were born abroad. Would Michael Chong say that the Singaporean government doesn’t care about its women getting conned? Hm.

Now that someone has come out and called it for what it is, I really hope that someone somewhere up there sits up and take notice of what’s going on. Things like this are all the more reason for people to leave. I hope they won’t wait till it’s too late.