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Trans-national marriage parents seek fairness for kids
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In a hurry: An expatriate wearing batik in observance of National Batik Day, runs with other workers to catch their train from Duku Atas train station. BPS recorded 73.46 percent increase of foreign worker arrivals in January, compared to the figure in December, 2015. (JP/P.J. Leo)
B
eing an Indonesian mother of three children from a marriage to a foreign spouse is not easy within Indonesia’s legal framework, especially when two of your three sons are regarded as foreign nationals.
Such was the position of Endang Iriani, 54, who has been married to her Spanish husband, an analyst at the Spanish Embassy, since 1987 and lives in Jakarta.
The couple’s eldest son and second son, Gaizka Anggakara Olaechea, 27, and Gorka Kalandra Olaechea, 25, missed the opportunity to apply for limited dual citizenship during the four-year window between 2006 and 2010 after the 2006 Citizenship Law was enacted and, therefore, are considered foreign nationals.
Since then, despite being the children of an Indonesian parent, Gaizka and Gorka have lived in the country through temporary stay permits (KITAS) similar to those issued to expatriate workers, Endang said.
In July 2014, Gaizka was even on the brink of being deported when the family missed the deadline to extend his second KITAS. As the law required, Endang either had to pay a fine of Rp 25 million (US$1,881) or send her son abroad for a year before he could return to the land of his birth.
“I was given a week to pay Rp 25 million, so I went to the pawn shop and pawned my gold. What else I could do? I couldn’t let them deport my son,” Endang told The Jakarta Post recently.
Read also: Hopes crumble for mixed-marriage families
