MIRI: Welfare, Community Well-being, Women, Family and Childhood Development Minister Datuk Seri Fatimah Abdullah has called on the federal government to give Sarawak full autonomy to resolve issues concerning stateless children in the State.
“Since the establishment of the Special Committee on Citizenship Status, from 2016 to Oct 22 last year, a total of 969 applications have been received. To date, only 253 have been approved and the rest are still under consideration,” she said at the launching of the Women’s Day celebration here today.
“It saddens me when these children face barriers to education, adequate health care , employment opportunities and opportunities to receive welfare aid,” she said.
Therefore, she urged the Premier of Sarawak Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Abang Johari Tun Openg to bring this up to Prime Minister Datuk Sri Ismail Sabri Yaakob to give Sarawak special authority to resolve stateless children issues.
On another matter, Fatimah called for more women to be included as decision-makers.
“As a region we need to work towards equal participation and involvement of women in sectors such as politics, civil service, private sector and corporate sector,” she stressed.
Fatimah said since the “at least 30 per cent women at the decision-making level in the public sector” policy was introduced in 2004, women’s participation at the federal level had exceeded the target of 37 per cent by 2020 but for the same period Sarawak’s achievement was still below 17 per cent.
She pointed out that in reality, women’s participation in the decision -making process was still low.
“For example, only 15 people or 3 per cent of women were appointed as community leaders and only 535 people or 9 per cent of women were appointed as village chiefs as of January 2022.
In the state public sector, 12 people or 15 per cent of women were at the top management level while 47.19 per cent or a total of 1,840 women were in the management and professional group.
