RI should accept dual citizenship
RI should accept dual citizenship
It was interesting to read in the Nov. 15 edition of The
Jakarta Post that the 1958 Law on Citizenship may be revised. A
working committee is currently debating amendments to the present
law that states that the citizenship of a child is determined by
the citizenship of the father.
The current law is discriminatory. Why should a child take the
father's nationality? I have an Indonesian wife and we live in
Indonesia but any children that result from our marriage will
illogically be regarded as British, even though the child will
have been born here, raised here and have an Indonesian mother.
On Nov. 14, Kedaulatan Rakyat reported a case involving an
Australian man living in Solo who failed to advise the
immigration office that he had married an Indonesian woman and
that they had a son. Presumably because the couple could foresee
bureaucratic difficulties in the future the child was registered
illegally as an Indonesian citizen. Consequently, when the case
was uncovered, the immigration office decided that the father,
together with his seven-year-old "Australian" son, be deported.
It seems absolutely ridiculous that the children of a marriage
between a foreign man and an Indonesian woman need to have a visa
to be allowed to stay with their own mother. Surely the best
answer to this problem is to recognize the principle of dual
nationality, whereby the children of such a marriage have the
right to hold two passports. Dual nationality is an accepted
concept throughout the world so why the resistance to it in
Indonesia?
While a committee is looking at the immigration laws it should
also examine why it is that my wife can move to my country and
get the right to stay and ultimately a passport, with all the
rights that it offers (e.g. freedom to work) within a short space
of time, whilst I am made to feel no better than a criminal here
in Indonesia, having to report to the immigration office and
police every month and leave the country every six months to get
a new social visa.
DAVE GREENWOOD
Yogyakarta