Kuala Lumpur - Malaysia has ruled that religious conversion of children cannot be done without the consent of both parents, news reports said Thursday.

The ruling is set to ease strained race and religion relations in this Muslim-majority but constitutionally secular nation.

Law Minister Nazri Abdul Aziz said the cabinet decided that after a couple separates, their children must be raised in what was the common religion practised in the family during the marriage, the Star newspaper reported.

The ruling followed a highly publicized case this month in which a Hindu woman challenged the conversion of her three children to Islam by her estranged husband, who became a Muslim after their divorce.

The man had allegedly taken the three children's birth certificates and registered them as Muslim converts without either his children's or his ex-wife's knowledge.

Ethnic Malay Muslims comprise nearly two-thirds of Malaysia's population, which is also made up of ethnic minority Chinese and Indians, who are mainly Buddhists, Christians or Hindus. (dpa)