Many Dayak are still without Birth Certiicate

Many Dayak are still without Birth Certificate

Are you surprise?

Many Dayak both in the rural area and urban areas are without birth certificate. This feedback is gathered from certain department authorities in Sarawak. After 45 years of independence, why are many Dayak still without Birth Certificate?

I know many Ybs and community leaders has signed special form to comfirm that the applicants are really Dayak born and bred in Sarawak. Their only sin if you really want to call it a sin is their parent are so ignorant and mostly poor that they cannot meet the Department of National Registration to make a report on the birth of their child. The cost of transport going to town is very expansive and the parents are not able to make it to town to register their child’s birth to the relevant government office.

To be poor

What it means is the parent do not have the money to come down to town and register the birth of their child. The parents are also without document from Maternity Clinics and hospital as they cannot afford such luxury and there are many Dayak who still give birth in farm houses and long houses without any government services available to them.

Should the government punish such poor and ignorant people. I understand that ignorance of the law is no excuse for action not to be taken against them. This is where discretionary practices must be exercise by the responsible person. But what happen if the person in charge of the National Registration is a West malaysian Malay, maybe born with silver spoon or just another West Malaysian who has no perception of what is going on in rural Sarawak? The applicant will suffer because strict rules will be imposed upon them.

After 45 years of independence why is it that the government is not interested to solve this no birth certificate and identity card problems among Dayak. Maybe the Taib BN/UMNO led government fear that the Dayak numbers would increase substantially and that they will lead then Sarawak government sooner than later. Without identity card the Dayak voters would not grow in numbers.

This is a big danger for Dayak as the selected few will feast on their land and thus would restrict Dayak material progress in future.

Government Initiative

We heard the National Registration conduct rural exercise to allow for the rural poor folk to apply for their birth certificate. To my mind, such programe should be continuous and not ad hoc with restricted time. This birth certificate is very important to ensure that the child would live a full Malayisan citizen life and enjoy the individual rights in Malaysia.

Many cannot obtain international passport and even during tender age these children that are without a birth certificate is deprived of government assistance particularly in education.

Kumpulan Wang Amanah Untuk Pelajar Miskin (KWAMP)

Many Dayak teachers has expressed their disappointment with their elected representative to resolve the issue of Dayak student without birth certificate. Without this document the government KWAMP cannot give these student who are without birth certificate any assistance. These students are already poor and the arrogant approach of implementors are not helping the poor student at all in the needs for support to get their education.

A few teachers has touched this subject in their discussion and that they found that urban parent who are driving BMW and Volvo, Camry and Honda Accord are given help under KWAMP because their child has birth certificate and also they have submitted their income statement to the school.

How could a poor unemployed Dayak meet such “income statement” requirement before their application for assistance could be approved? Why are the Dayak problem being accelerated to a new level by such requirement and if they do not meet the requirement there will not receive government aid. This is all too much red tape and some government officers used this opportunity to suppress Dayak progress in education.

Welfare Assistance for the old folk

The same is happening to those poor old Dayak folks who are still not given assistance despite having ask for it repeated from the Welfare department? The government officers in-charge of these department need to be able to make a responsible judgment from their field experience and approve deserving application. Why does all this process and requirement for application for birth certificate and welfare assistance not made more open and customer friendly?

Conclusion

If you have one race as a majority in any government department, the tendencies for racialism, nepotism, unfairness and a distorted thought will caused biasness. This has greatly push the Dayak educational and welfare progress backward.

We Dayak must not accept these short-coming of the government without serious effort to correct the wrong. It seems that the Federal Government is not interested to solve this problem in sabah and Sarawak. We Dayak should push the BN government to address all these problems urgently and also send the message that BN under Taib Mahmud to be more responsible to the people need than lining his pocket with money.

For being without a Birth Certificate the child must not be punished by denying their right to receive assistance from KWAMP. If this punishment is carried out, more and more Dayak will not receive reasonable education. No education mean without many choices in life and may get in the way of the Dayak child personal ambitions. Then Dayak progress will be retarded.

(Sumber: Dayakbaru.weblog by Dr. John Brian Anthony)