Paulsen was responding to the move by the Kedah state government in seeking leniency from the state Education Department to allow stateless children to register at government schools.

“Without education, they have no access to other rights. Not even (rights) to travel,” the human rights lawyer said.

“These children should be educated as it is the only way to break the cycle of deprivation.”

He said children should have access to education, from primary to secondary.

State Education Committee chairman Tajul Urus Mat Zain was quoted by the New Straits Times as saying he had taken the request from the state government to the education department in the hope that stateless children could attend government schools.

Kedah Malay Students Federation chairman Shamsul Bahar Abdul Rani said the association received many requests from parents and legal guardians to help them register stateless children in public schools.

He told NST that some cases involved couples who married abroad and failed to register their marriage here, while other cases involved children born out of wedlock.

Human rights NGO Tenaganita director Glorene Das told FMT that each child was born with rights.

“You cannot determine a child’s rights as every child is born with it. It is inherent,” Das said.

Das pointed out that the enrollment issue is not isolated to stateless children but also to locals working in plantations and the Orang Asal whose children do not have birth certificates, adding that Tenaganita had helped six families with a similar problem last year.