SHAH ALAM, May 31 — The MySel programme continues to help Selangoreans facing issues with documentation such as birth certificates, MyKad, citizenship, adoption, and statelessness.
MySel operations officer Shanta Venugopal said the programme, set up by the state government, aims to help people without means or those without the access or knowledge to apply for official documents.
She said documentation issues don’t affect any one race, but each race group has their own challenges.
Jelasnya, isu itu tidak hanya tertumpu kepada kumpulan kaum tertentu sahaja, sebaliknya setiap mereka mempunyai cabaran dokumentasi tersendiri.
According to Shanta, among Indians, among the most prevalent problems is the lack of MyKad due to unregistered births, loss of documents, and difficulty tracing past family records.
“Many who come to see us are already in their teens or (older) but still without MyKad. Some were born in Malaysia, they just can’t prove their citizenship because of incomplete family documents,” she said when met by Media Selangor recently.
In the Chinese community, many face documentation issues due to adoption, especially in cases where guardianship transfers aren’t recorded early on.
“There are parents who care for a child from young as if it were their (biological) child, but adoption documents are incomplete, so when the child grows up, the process of making a birth certificate or identity card becomes difficult,” she said.
Besides that, Shanta said Malays face documentation problems due to unregistered marriages, which affect the issuance of birth certificates.
She added that there are many cases where locals marry foreigners but don’t legally register their marriages.
“So when they have children, documentation becomes complicated because (the parents’) marriage and citizenship statuses must be verified first,” she said.
Shanta said documentation issues significantly affect people’s access to education, formal employment, and healthcare, as well as government welfare initiatives like Bantuan Kehidupan Sejahtera Selangor (BINGKAS).
“There are some who have long been in Selangor but can’t apply for assistance because they don’t have identity cards or their citizenship status hasn’t been verified,” she added.
She also called attention to statelessness, whose solution requires comprehensive coordination between the National Registration Department (JPN), Home Ministry (KDN), Immigration Department (JIM), and Social Welfare Department (JKM).
To resolve the issue, MySel provides counselling, document checking, and aid application services.
“The role of MySel isn’t just to help fill forms. We try to help and guide applicants till the end of the process. Every case has its challenges; some take a long time because we have to check old records and look for additional documents,” she explained.
Meanwhile, state executive councillor for human resources and poverty eradication Papparaidu Veraman said the Selangor government is exploring more efficient measures to ensure more people gain citizenship rights and legal identification documents.
Since MySel was launched, it has reportedly resolved more than 4,000 cases related to documentation issues via cooperation with various government agencies, with 5,000 more cases still pending.
In view of this, Shanta encouraged the public to immediately register their children’s births, officially record their marriages, and ensure family documents are well stored to prevent documentation issues in the future.
