On the other side of the alternative school is an unused, but neatly kept wooden house, where two mothers wait on the raised verandah, away from the sun, patiently for their children to finish school. “Come on up, teacher. It’s hot down there,” they say as our conversation prolongs past pleasantries. They’ve been present every school day without fail — like the eager parents waiting outside the school gates, the ones who you would see at every parent-teacher association meeting.
They had both started their day early, waking up at four in the morning, to prepare a packed breakfast for their children. At 6am, one of them begins walking with her two teenage children in tow. By half past six, they pickup the other mother and her two children. Together — like a convoy, we joke — the two families continue their walk for another two and a half hours before arriving at school.
Both mothers used to be neighbours in this village. They moved out to live with their husbands when they got married. “We both have the same fate. We’re born the same year. We both don’t have ICs.”
The two women also worked as labourers on the university building site, which is now the village’s immediate neighbour. Despite being only 38 years old, the hard conditions have weathered — missing front teeth and clusters of fine lines on their skin make them appear at least twice their age. One of the mothers just had two molars extracted during a visit from a mobile dentist on a community visit the previous week.
“Luckily school is only three times a week. If it was every day, our legs would’ve long been broken by now!” she jokes. “Of course, we want to have school every day, but our knees wouldn’t be able to take it.”
The alternative school here in Teluk Layan Village, on the bay of Sepanggar, Sabah, Borneo, is a modest learning centre, run by volunteer university students, for the undocumented, or unrecognised, children.
“They [the NRD] say I need two guarantors — one father and one mother. But I told them, my mother ran away because my dad married our stepmother,” explains Siti, the chattier of the two mothers. She has been trying to obtain her national identity card since she was 15 years old.
“My father, he too, ran away. He left us with our new mother, our stepmother. So she is the one who has been bearing all the burden and hardships since we were young until now.”
“The NRD told me to look for my parents. It’s illogical, isn’t it? They’ve asked me to refer to this and that. It’s really frustrating. Going here and there. The [bus] fare is expensive now. It costs RM3 [~$0.75] to go to the NRD.”
Read: Teluk Layan Village “Then & Now”
“My head hurts having to go here and there, there and here. But nothing changes. They just give more paper, more forms. I have all the forms from JPN but no identification card. How long do I have to wait?”
No victories
Anne Baltazar, co-founder of Advocates for Non-discrimination and Access to Knowledge (ANAK), an NGO that conducts research and provides para-legal aid for youths to gather documents necessary for them to gain access to education in Malaysia. As part of her ongoing research, on her rights to identity concerning the stateless and undocumented children of Filipino descent, she has interviewed over 180 people to date.
“The quickest way to get your citizenship is to go to court. Most of the court cases, you would’ve already applied two, three times,” she says with little optimism. ANAK began pursuing cases towards the end of 2017, but Anne speaks of “no victories so far”.
“The waiting time, the courts will tell you that they’ll answer you within two and a half years — that’s the promise. But usually it goes beyond that. And then at the end of application, they’ll tell you, ‘Denied. Apply again.’ So you apply again. And wait for another three years.
“So, just imagine, how many years of the child’s life is spent not being able to have the services provided to citizen children?”
“I’ve asked the NRD here, why is it so hard? And they said that there are a lot of syndicates. Plenty of scams. So they are very careful. That’s why it takes longer [in Sabah].”
“Even when we go to all these government agencies we don’t tell them that we’re NGOs. Because usually they will just shut down. They don’t want to talk to us,” she sighs. “People are so desperate for documents in Sabah, there are a lot of people making use of this desperation to make money.”
In September 2019, a syndicate, that involved an assistant director with the National Register Department in the Malaysian state of Penang, were charged with selling fake birth certificates and identification cards. According to The Star Online, the syndicate was reported to have bagged between RM100,000 to over half a million Ringgit per sale (approximately US$24,700 – $148,000).
Money matters
However, the scams that Anne and our interviewees speak off do not appear to be as high-rolling. Perhaps the low price point in-line with the income of its targeted impoverished victims.
Siti recalls having people come to her house, claiming they were able to help her register for documents. Each time she would often part with comparably small sums of money between RM10 to RM100 (~$2.50 – $25). Up until this interview, she had not realised that those incidents were scams.
Once, she almost lost her original birth certificate when a woman claimed that she was going to take the document to the National Registration Department. Had it not been for her husband, she would not have thought to chase after the woman. Siti, called up the woman who was already in her vehicle by then, and pretended that she needed to pass her something. When they came face to face, the woman refused to hand over Siti’s birth certificate. It was only when Siti snatched her bag and threatened to call the police that the woman returned the birth certificate
“As long as they hear you can help get documents, they will fork out the money for it. That’s how they’re being used. With the little money that they have, they are still losing it because of all this,” Anne says. The human rights advocate also uses her interviews with research participants as a platform to spread awareness. “We tell them especially, ‘if they ask for payment, don’t do it. If it’s payment, it needs to be at the office. And the office is only the consulate. Even if it’s Malaysian immigration or the NRD, they will not arrest you there. They cannot do that.’”
“They’ll believe anyone who they meet on the street. Because they’re scared to go to the office.”
But the loss of the little income that they have does not stop there. “If you do the interviews, you’ll hear about a lot of extortion. If you ask anyone, say, from Sandakan, who is in KK, undocumented. They’ll say, you just have to make sure that you have money in your pocket. If any roadblocks, you just have to pay. This is not just from one or two persons, this has been consistent throughout my interviews.”
Decades of patience
Teluk Layan Village headman, Rais, is considered one of the luckier ones with persistence, determination, and enough money for a return flight ticket to Kuala Lumpur; he managed to obtain an identity card — 25 years from the date of application.
Rais first applied for his identity card in 1993. “Over here, sometimes they don’t entertain us. sometimes the people here are just, ‘Yes. Yes. Yes’. I applied for my IC not just once or twice. It’s not just the registration office here. Before, it was in Wisma [Dang] Bandang too in town. They said, ‘Wait, wait, wait.’ Until the registration department opened here, I applied and applied. They said, ‘Wait. Wait.’
In 2018, he finally received his identification card, not in Kota Kinabalu, but two and a half hours away — in Kuala Lumpur. This trip alone would have cost him at least RM500 (~$125) for a return flight with a budget airline, plus on ground transportation, food and accommodation.
“I asked them [the NRD] for a release letter so that I could travel to Putrajaya in West Malaysia. Once I managed to free myself to Putrajaya, I waited there for three days. Then only did I get my IC.”
This article is an online extension of ‘The School by the Sea’, first printed in Plates, Vol.3: Water. Available in the Plates online store — yes, we ship worldwide! — and at selected trusted independent stockists. Take back control of the narratives that might have been filtered out of your peripheries and bookshelves.
See also: “Being Too Asian”