More than 16k foreign women given M'sian citizenship since 2004

KUALA LUMPUR: A total of 16,702 foreign women were given Malaysian citizenship in the last 10 years, Deputy Home Minister Datuk Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar said today.
This is provided under Article 15(1) of the Federal Constitution, he added in reply to Senator Chia Song Cheng who wanted to know the number of foreign spouses who have successfully applied for citizenship from 2004 until December, last year.
The foreign women are mainly from Indonesia (5,992), India (2,374) and Thailand (1,409) with the remaining 6,927 from other countries.
The Federal Constitution allows for a foreign woman to become a Malaysian citizen after marrying a local man, living in the country for two years prior to the citizenship application date and having good behaviour.
Wan Junaidi told the Dewan Negara that in the case of foreign men marrying a Malaysian, the application for citizenship is through naturalisation, under Article 19 of the Constitution, which is subject to the man's duration of stay, good behaviour and knowledge of Bahasa Malaysia.