Featured Editorial: New Straits Times
Growing the Talent Pool
9 February 2007

THE granting of permanent resident status within six months for their foreign spouses is the latest incentive to lure home Malaysian experts presently working abroad.

This guarantee under the Expert Returnee Programme is another welcome move to expand our pool of professionals.

But that addresses only the problem we face bringing professionals back, not the other (often forgotten) problem we sometimes have preventing a brain drain of Malaysian experts working here.

Some are leaving for better job prospects abroad but some are pushed by the frustratingly long wait their foreign spouses face in securing PR status, which would allow them to work here.

Offering these professionals the same expedited PR-for-the-spouse incentive would help prevent the flow of Malaysian experts outward while we work on attracting back those abroad. And just as the recent offer to experts abroad does not discriminate on the basis of the spouse's gender, any incentive for Malaysian experts and their spouses already here should also be gender-blind.

As it is, within Malaysia, foreign husbands of Malaysians face much longer delays obtaining PR status than foreign wives. Some of these foreign husbands wait more than 10 years.

And while these husbands can only be granted PR status based on their employment status, foreign wives need only prove they are married to Malaysians.

Since September 2001, foreign husbands can stay in the country on social visit passes for a year (previously three months) in order to find gainful employment. But under Article 15(1) of the Constitution, any foreign wife of a Malaysian is entitled, on application, to be registered as a citizen.

The foreign husband of a Malaysian does not have such a right. Because of this perceived gender-based discrimination in the case of foreign husbands seeking PR status, Malaysian women with foreign spouses find it difficult to work and live here and often are obliged to move overseas. Yet both they and their husbands may have skill sets that Malaysia can ill afford to lose and is in fact trying to bring back to the country.

Malaysia has amended the Constitution, adding "gender" to the grounds on which citizens shall not be discriminated against.

While the legislation relating to PR status does not discriminate, delays and difficulties during implementation may give that impression. Guaranteeing easily attainable PR status for both foreign husbands and wives of Malaysian professionals already in the country would go a long way towards changing that perception - and persuading them to stay on, while we lure back those Malaysian experts working abroad.

Related Articles:

• Know Your Rights - Rights as a Foreign Spouse
• Press Statement on the Predicament Faced by Foreign Wives of Malaysian Citizens