1. Discriminatory Nationality Laws
As noted above Brunei’s citizenship laws contain both racially and gender discriminatory provisions, with Malay ethnicity and citizenship being deeply entwined. The limitation of nationality to certain prescribed ethnic groups, or “indigenous groups of the Malay race” is the primary cause of statelessness in Brunei.
Barriers to their access to citizenship include being excluded from the eligible ethnicities for citizenship in legislation, not being able to provide evidence of legal residence, and inability to pass the Malay language test.As noted above Brunei’s citizenship laws contain both racially and gender discriminatory provisions, with Malay ethnicity and citizenship being deeply entwined.
The largest registered stateless group in the country is persons of Chinese heritage who are not considered one of the prescribed groups. Most of the affected population hold regularised permanent residence in Brunei and hold identity certificates that provide rights to travel, access education and health care. However, their permanent resident status does not allow them to hold passports, restricts freedom of movement, excludes them from accessing fully subsidized healthcare or higher education, and prohibits them from owning property, land or a business, among other restrictions. Despite the regularised status persons are still denied citizenship and UNHCR has called on Brunei to amend the racially discriminatory provisions with retrospective effect.
Gender discriminatory provisions further fundamentally limit a female citizen of Brunei to confer nationality to her children, essentially terming them stateless, requiring a registration process to be undertaken for citizenship to be recognised (whereas children born to male citizens receive automatic citizenship). Women are also limited in their ability to confer nationality onto foreign husbands (while male citizens of Brunei can pass on nationality to foreign wives).
2. Lack of Legal Safeguards Against Childhood Statelessness
The citizenship legislation of Brunei does not provide any right to nationality for foundling children or children born to stateless parents. It also does not provide any safeguards to children whose nationality will be passed by their mothers, where albeit such children will be provided with identity documents and will go through an application process, but are yet considered stateless.
3. Citizenship Stripping
Brunei citizenship may be lost if the citizen resides outside of Brunei for five continuous years without providing satisfactory proof of maintaining a “substantial connection with Brunei”. Citizenship may only be deprived of citizens by registration or naturalization. Notably, if a person who has gained citizenship by registration or naturalization acts or speaks in a way is “disloyal or disaffected towards His Majesty the Sultan”, they will be stripped of Brunei citizenship. However, an individual shall not be stripped of their citizenship according to the law if such would lead to the individual being stateless.
4. Administrative Barriers
Stateless persons in Brunei can seek citizenship through naturalization where certain residence standards are met and a Malay language and cultural test is passed. However, there are reports that persons who have met the requirements and passed the relevant tests still have not been granted citizenship 5 to 10 years after completing the requirements, pointing at administrative barriers to accessing citizenship through this process.
Universal birth registration is required for all children born in the territory of Brunei, as stipulated by the Birth and Deaths Registration Act (2013). Brunei has reported a 100% birth registration rate to UNICEF as of 2020. Despite this, indigenous groups, including the Dusun and Iban, experience significant barriers to birth registration, placing them at risk of statelessness. Residing mostly in rural areas of Brunei, access to registration is low, despite the government’s stated efforts to improve access.
