Patricia Low

As Research and Policy Coordinator for Family Frontiers, Patricia Low guides the movement towards equal citizenship rights for binational families, believing that welfare should not be gate kept to full Malaysian-born families.

Her foray into advocacy began after she returned to Malaysia with her young family to put down roots, but found herself in a struggle to secure citizenship for her two overseas-born children who, as a result, faced uncertainty and difficulty just to remain in the country she calls home. Presently, Malaysia’s laws deny citizenship to children born abroad to women married to non-Malaysian spouses.

At the heart of her work at Family Frontiers is a focus on evidence-based advocacy and the centring of lived experiences. Patricia led research initiatives, developed advocacy materials, engaged with policymakers and parliamentary mechanisms, and written reports to UN treaty bodies such as Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC). She has also spoken at various events in Malaysia and abroad, including the Global South Women’s Forum 2023, KYUEM Summit 2024, the 4th Asia Pacific Feminist Forum, and is currently involved in a multi-country research project on the experiences of women marriage migrants and the challenges they face.

As a firm believer that art plays a key role in advocacy, she has written and performed poems that speak of identity, belonging, and the lived realities of those impacted by discriminatory nationality laws and statelessness. One of her poems, ‘An Irregular Ode on Belonging’, was featured at this year’s World Conference on Statelessness.

Cultivating meaningful change involves centring the stories and lived experiences of affected individuals and communities and putting power back into their hands, and through building and sustaining movements. There is a profound impact that can come from collective solidarity and collaboration.