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