KUCHING: Sino Dayak Association Sarawak supports the call made by Dayak Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DCCI) for issues involving children born to parents of mixed marriages between a non-native person and a native to be resolved by the state government.
Its president Sebastian Bong said the association looks forward to any move to resolve the issue as they have long waited for a solution regarding their status.
According to Bong, the Sino Dayak community number about 200,000 in Sarawak and they comprise those born of inter-marriages between the Chinese and the Dayaks.
“Many incidents of families evicted from their inherited land have gone unnoticed. These unfortunate families know that they’re not protected by any existing laws.
“It would be sufficient for the government to consider inherited land which is usually a plot for a house and two or three acres of farmland for livelihood.
“Additional laws can be attached stating that inherited land (native titled or native customary rights) cannot be sold or transferred of ownership to anyone outside the family circle,” he said when contacted yesterday.
Bong also said that many of the elected representatives in Sarawak in one way or another are linked to Sino-Dayak community.
“So such issues if tabled in the Dewan (State Legislative Assembly) should get good support for approval and implementation,” he added.
He was asked to respond to news reports of Dayak Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DCCI) hoping for a resolve to the issue of children who are born to parents of mixed marriages between a non-native person and a native of Sarawak.
DCCI secretary general Libat Langub was quoted as saying the legal implementation of the law has rendered these children raceless.
As such, Libat said DCCI is urging the Sarawak state government to take the necessary step to amend the state’s existing laws to give due recognition to the children of a mixed marriage between a non-native and a native, whether father or mother, as natives of Sarawak.
“It bears noting that in all native groups, a child of a male or female native parent belongs to the native community without any distinction, and any child may be entitled to receive inheritance from his parents, according the wishes of the parents whether it be native customary rights land, native titled land or chattels,” he had said.
Libat also pointed out that for many years the Lands and Survey Department had allowed registration of such transfers of native titled land but lately there had been a change in practice.
“The Lands and Survey Department has recently taken a more restrictive interpretation of ‘native’ under our laws overturning the original time-honoured recognition of these inheritance rights and adat that had been accepted and practised by our predecessors since last century.
“A refusal of registration by the Lands and Survey Department of these transfers is a regressive step in our modern progressing state. Children of such mixed marriages are proud to be natives. They live as natives; speak native language; practise native adat; celebrate festivities of their native communities, for example, Gawai,” he had said.
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