Country Position Paper: Statelessness in Kuwait RELEVANT POPULATION DATA Official Language: Arabic 1 Estimated Population: 4.2 million (1.3 million Kuwaiti citizens) Estimated number of stateless people (UNHCR 2018): 93,566 2 Estimated number of Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) (UN 2018): 0 Estimated number of refugees hosted by Kuwait: 0 Estimated number of refugees from Kuwait: Unknown KUWAIT’S NATIONALITY LAW Acquisition and withdrawal of nationality is regulated in Kuwait by the 1959 Nationality Law. 3 The law has been reformed a few times since 1959, but these changes have made it more restrictive. 4 The following summary identifies problems relating to the law or its application that may lead to statelessness. Discrimination in access to nationality Acquisition of nationality at birth The Kuwaiti Nationality Law is based on paternal jus sanguinis.5 Article 2 of the Nationality Law, states that: “any person born in, or outside, Kuwait whose father is a Kuwaiti national shall be a Kuwaiti national himself.’’6 This means that a Kuwaiti father passes Kuwaiti nationality to his child regardless of where the child is born. The law has two negative consequences for statelessness in Kuwait: 1. Statelessness can be transferred from a stateless father to a child, even if the child is born in Kuwait. So, a child born in Kuwait to a stateless father will be stateless as well. The law thereby facilitates intergenerational statelessness and the inheritance of statelessness. 7 2. The law discriminates against women as it prevents them from passing on their Kuwaiti nationality to their child. As stipulated in Article 3 of the Nationality Law, a Kuwaiti mother may only legally transfer her nationality to a child: “whose father is unknown or whose kinship to his father has not been legally established”. 8 In practice, this limited safeguard is rarely implemented9 and a child will therefore rarely acquire nationality through their mother. CIA, The World Factbook. Access via: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html UNHCR (2019). The World in Numbers. Available at: http://popstats.unhcr.org/en/overview 3 Kuwait 1959 Nationality Law. Available online at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6b4ef1c.html 4 Legal Agenda (2016). Nationality and cases of Statelessness in the Middle East and North Africa. Available at: http://legal-agenda.com/uploads/1501236997-Eng%20Stateless%20Report%20.pdf 5 The principle whereby a child acquires the nationality of a country through their parent(s). 6 Kuwait 1959 Nationality Law. Available online at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6b4ef1c.html 7 Minority Rights Group International (2017). Kuwait, Bidoon Profile. Available at: https://minorityrights.org/minorities/bidoon/ 8 Kuwaiti 1959 Nationality Law. Available online at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6b4ef1c.html 9 Womens Refugee Commission (2013). Our Motherland, Our Country. Available at: https://www.womensrefugeecommission.org/resources/239-refugee-protection/942-our-motherland-our-country-genderdiscrimination-and-statelessness-in-the-middle-east-and-north-africa 1 2 4