Kuwait’s stateless despair at their state

James Calderwood, Foreign Correspondent

• Last Updated: February 03. 2009 9:30AM UAE / February 3. 2009 5:30AM GMT

KUWAIT CITY // Kuwait’s parliamentary committee for stateless persons will meet the minister of the interior this week to demand data about Kuwait’s tens of thousands of illegal residents who are known as bidoons.

“The committee wants to give nationality to those who deserve it like those who fought in wars or in the liberation or gave any other great effort. The state needs to do more,” said Askar al Enezi, an MP on the committee, adding that anyone named in the 1965 census should be considered for citizenship.

About 36,000 bidoons registered in 1965 , which has generally been considered the minimum requirement to gain nationality. Thousands more registered after that date.
A mother of a bidoon family, who withheld her name because her husband works in the government, cried as she displayed her family’s documents.

She has the blue passport of a Kuwaiti, but her husband is a bidoon, so he and their nine children have silver papers which describe their nationality as “undefined”.
She doubts parliament’s sincerity.

“MPs are always fighting each other about whether women should wear hijabs or not, but not about us,” she said.

“I feel that I am not alive. Every day, I feel like the ground wants to swallow me up.
“My sons have no future, no house, they can’t get married, they can’t drive cars.

“Eleven people stay here, and there are only four rooms. My daughter can’t work in a government job. She earns 200 dinars a month [Dh2,500] in a private school, Kuwaiti teachers in the same job take home 900.”

The woman’s husband said: “I want my sons to be free; I want my sons to be like Kuwaiti people.”

He is a military veteran who served in Egypt and Syria in the campaigns against Israel. Because of his service, the government provides him with a job, but he can never be a commissioned officer.

His generation had an easier time getting jobs in ministries or the army – before Saddam Hussein.

Bidoons, and resident Palestinians, were accused of collaborating with Iraqis during the 1990 invasion. Many of the Palestinians were deported and bidoons were shut out from government jobs.

“We did not leave Kuwait in the invasion, and we were not with Iraq. We didn’t even change our car’s number plate,” the mother said. “My husband told them to take the car instead.”

Bidoons cannot get civil identity cards, birth or death certificates and they are denied equal access to health and education.

Even though the mother is Kuwaiti, only a man can pass citizenship to his children or spouse. The children will only become Kuwaiti if she divorces him, or he dies.

The woman’s husband was born in Kuwait, but his father, a nomad, was suspicious when the government started handing out citizenship, and refused. The family rues his decision.

The word bidoon comes from the Arabic term “bidoon jinsiyya”, meaning “without citizenship”.

The label is unwelcome. “I hate this word,” the mother said.

Most estimates say more than 100,000 bidoons live in Kuwait. Possibly as many left the country during the Iraqi invasion and were not allowed to return.

To grant nationality to so many people would place a huge strain on the country’s generous welfare system. Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the UAE all have issues with stateless residents, but Kuwait’s case is the most acute.

Bidoons here could account for as much as 20 per cent of the country’s citizens.

Some bidoons came to Kuwait during the oil boom in the 1960s and 1970s. The government says that many have nationality from other countries, but conceal it in the hope of getting the benefits of a Kuwaiti citizen.

There are few benefits for the many bidoon families living in Sulaibiya, a suburb of Kuwait City. Although the father’s service has provided his family with a good standard of living, others here are less fortunate. Stories of drugs, alcohol or violence related to young bidoons are reported in the press daily. “Roll up your windows and lock your doors,” the father warns his guests – an uncommon greeting in this oil-rich state.

Sulaibiya’s corrugated iron walls are covered with graffiti. Its streets are strewn with bricks and ruptured plastic bins. Instead of the palatial streets usually found in Kuwait, it has the air of a failed housing project.

Religious fundamentalism is spreading in Sulaibiya’s impoverished streets.
It was the scene of Kuwait’s worst terrorist incident in 2005 when a gunfight broke out between militants and police.

jcalderwood@thenational.ae