Solomons public appeal for dual citizenship growing

Transcript

A public appeal for the consideration of dual citizenship in Solomon Islands is gaining momentum both inside and outside the country.

The appeal which takes the form of a letter to be presented to Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare has more than 480 signatures online, with hard copies of signatures in the Capital Honiara yet to be tallied.

The woman behind the letter is Australian Jennifer Ragaruma, who has lived in Solomon Islands since 2004 with her Solomon Islands husband Morgan and their daughters, Katelyn, 7, and twins, Keelah and Anneka, 4.

Mrs Ragaruma says the appeal is being brought as the government begins its review of the country's immigration laws - a process she says may take several years to complete.

JENNIFER RAGARUMA: So basically we are just asking the Prime Minister that when they review these acts to please consider the benefits to not only the families such as mine that are involved but to the general benefit for the country. I mean it is not just, people in my situation who are wanting to sign this letter and lend their support. But it's just general Solomon Islanders who see that this would be a good thing. That they don't want to, you know, if a persons a Solomon Islander if they are born a Solomon Islander and they want to be able to keep that.

KOROI HAWKINS: And I understand that you put this up on social media for discussion. What were some of the comments that you got? I mean were there positive and negative comments coming through on that?

JR: Yeah so there was, I put it up just before Easter and there has been a long discussion ever since then. Overwhelmingly the support and the comments have been positive. There was a word of caution from just really one or two. And even that, that is really just caution saying lets explore this and lets investigate it first. And certainly that is what we want. We don't just want to say hey, give us dual citizenship. We want the issue to be open and to be researched and explored. And so yeah the positive comments have been overwhelming.

KH: And you are not calling it a petition although you are getting signatures to be put on this letter that you are putting together. When are you going to present that to the Prime Minister and how many people have signed on so far?

JR: This has really just happened quite fast and so well I am in the process of working out well how does one make an appointment to deliver a letter to the prime minister and how does one go about doing that. So I am hoping that in the next two or three weeks we should be able to arrange something and to be able to present it then. There are up to twenty hard copies available around Honiara. For people to physically sign and because they are spread out in many locations I do not know how many signatures have been collected there yet. But certainly it is also available online this letter for people around the world to sign. Because of course this isn't just affecting Solomon Islanders in Solomon Islands but Solomon Islanders who would like to access and come back to Solomon Islands a lot more, who are living overseas. So that one as of this morning was about 480 signatures after being posted for about five days now. This is the cry of a lot of people and in my own situation I would dearly love for my own children to be legally, half Solomon, half Australian which is what they are by blood. And for myself, you know, I love Solomon Islands as much as I do Australia. I have lived here for a long time and I have got a lot of roots here and I would like to feel like I belonged and I think citizenship would really help that.