Stateless: Three-nation pact soon
Published on: Wednesday, July 25, 2018
Kota Kinabalu: A tripartite agreement may soon be signed among the national human rights commissions of Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines as, perhaps, the best way forward in resolving the complex issue of stateless people faced by Sabah, said to number in the hundreds of thousands.Despite being regarded as "Sabah's biggest problem and probably next to impossible to completely resolve" by Malaysian Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) Chairman Tan Sri Razali Ismail recently, the commissions from the three countries feel it is important to keep pushing for a solution.Suhakam commissioner Datuk Godfrey Gregory Joitol told Daily Express that the proposed agreement would commit the three national human rights commissions to influence their respective governments to resolve the issue of statelessness of their nationals, particularly those in Sabah.
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"The tripartite agreement is to look into the issue of statelessness in Sabah. What we intend to do is that the national human rights commissions will approach their governments, to give recommendations on what to do and what actions to take to solve the issue involving Filipinos and Indonesians in Sabah," he said.He could not say when the proposed agreement would be signed as it needs to be brought to the South East Asian Human Rights Forum where the chairmen of all the national human rights commissions in the region meet twice a year. "But certainly we want to settle this issue in Sabah and we hope it (the proposed agreement) would lead to a breakthrough. Even if we could solve the problem 10 per cent, it would be an achievement," he said.
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One of the big challenges is the Philippines' decades-old claim to Sabah which would likely cloud its government's decision. "Some quarters see that it is to Philippines advantage that as many stateless Filipinos remain in Sabah and even multiply as long as the Sabah claim keeps being raised. There have been reports that their embassy representatives are reluctant to come to Sabah to provide documents to their nationals, often subjecting them to an interview to supposedly ascertain whether they are Filipinos.
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But Godfrey insists politics must never interfere with efforts to uphold basic human rights standards."The right to a nationality is a human right," he declared, meaning their government, be it Philippines or Indonesia, should provide these people with Filipino or Indonesian documents rather than allow them to continue being stateless in Sabah.The issue of stateless children and persons including migrant workers and refugees in the country is highlighted in Suhakam's submission to the United Nations Human Rights Council's Third Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of Malaysia.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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