Country Position Paper: Statelessness in Kuwait from registration points at the time. 21 As a result, around one third of the population of Kuwait at the time became stateless and classified as bidoon jinsiya. 22 Additionally, a small portion of the Bidoon initially settled in neighbouring Arab states such as Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria and Jordan. The newly formed Kuwaiti state was struggling to build a national army and recruited people from these groups, who made up around 80% of the army until the 1980s. The Government registered them as bidoon jinsiya, as a way of avoiding political sensitivities. After the Gulf War, many of these Bidoon are thought to have left Kuwait. 23 As set out below, from the mid1980s onwards, the situation of the Bidoon deteriorated dramatically as they were cast as “illegal immigrants” by the state. Inheritance of statelessness The discriminatory nationality provisions in Kuwaiti legislation and the lack of safeguards against children being born stateless have meant that statelessness has become an intergenerational issue in Kuwait. Statelessness can be passed down from a stateless father to a child, regardless of whether the mother is a Kuwaiti national and regardless of whether the child is born in Kuwait. The children and grandchildren of those who were not able to register initially as Kuwaiti citizens have therefore also been left stateless. 24 There have been some efforts over the decades by the Kuwaiti authorities to resolve the situation of the Bidoon; however there has been little meaningful progress and the overall attitude to the Bidoon has changed very little since the 1990s. 25 In 2000, a law was passed allowing the naturalisation of Bidoon on the condition that they could demonstrate their registration in the 1965 census. In practice, very few Bidoon were able to acquire nationality through this process. 26 There are regular announcements of “new” initiatives to naturalise a segment of the Bidoon population, such as the descendants of those who served in Kuwait’s armed services or children of Kuwaiti mothers, but none has ever created a genuine pathway to nationality for more than a few hundred individuals. 27 Controversially, in 2016, the authorities entered into an agreement with the Union of the Comoros (an archipelago off the east coast of Africa), for the Comoros to grant economic citizenship to stateless persons living in Kuwait. There have been reports of individuals who have obtained this citizenship, although exact figures are unavailable. 28 This deal does not offer a genuine, effective or Beaugrand, C. (2017). Stateless in the Gulf: Migration, Nationality, and Society in Kuwait. Minority Rights Group International (2017). Kuwait, Bidoon Profile. Available at: https://minorityrights.org/minorities/bidoon/ 23 Minority Rights Group International (2017). Kuwait, Bidoon Profile. Available at: https://minorityrights.org/minorities/bidoon/ 24 In Kuwait there is no safeguard against childhood statelessness at birth. See UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (2013). List of issues in response to the second periodic report of Kuwait, CRC/C/KWT/Q/2. 25 Lund-Johansen (2014). Marie, Fighting for Citizenship in Kuwait, and also see, for instance, the news story that came to light in July 2013 around a leaked document from the Kuwaiti “Central Agency for Illegal Residents” which reportedly explained that the authorities were deliberately avoiding the use of the word stateless as follows: “The term stateless will obligate Kuwait to grant rights to those illegal residents according to international agreements. Those are people hiding their original documents to get the Kuwaiti citizenship”. Bedoon Rights, Leaked document: head of Central Agency fears the term “stateless”, 24 July 2013, available at: http://www.bedoonrights.org/2013/07/24/leakeddocument-head-of-central-agency-fears-the-term-stateless/ 26 Minority Rights Group International (2017). Kuwait, Bidoon Profile. Available at: https://minorityrights.org/minorities/bidoon/ 27 For the political use of (the promise of) naturalisation and its impact on Bidoon activism see Brokstad Lund-Johansen, M. (2014), Fighting for Citizenship in Kuwait. Available at: https://www.academia.edu/19225835/Fighting_for_Citizenship_in_Kuwait. 28 Abrahamian, A. A. (2015). The Cosmopolite: The Coming of the Global Citizen. 21 22 7