Statelessness Working Paper Series No. 2015/01 excluded from those social benefits. Data on numbers of stateless persons in the region are elusive.8 UNHCR estimates that Kuwait hosts 93,000 stateless persons, Saudi 70,000, and Qatar 1,200, but it does not provide estimates on the number of stateless persons in Bahrain, Oman, or the UAE.9 Most stateless in the region are Bidoon, short for Bidoon jinsiya, which means ‘without nationality.’ Most of these individuals are descendants of people who lived in the Gulf long before its independence, but who failed to register in post-independence censuses as citizens.10 Other stateless individuals in the Gulf are Palestinians who migrated to Gulf States after the founding of the State of Israel.11 Saudi Arabia hosts a large population of Rohingya, a Muslim stateless group from Myanmar who could not or did not return home after hajj, the religious pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia.12 Particularly in Kuwait and Bahrain, states have stripped nationality from nationals due to their political dissent.13 Finally, individuals may find themselves stateless due to so-called ‘technical causes,’ or gaps in nationality law, in particular because of gender-discriminatory nationality laws which do not allow women to convey nationality to their children.14 This article focuses on how law in GCC states renders individuals stateless through so-called ‘technical causes’ created by gender discrimination beyond nationality law. Gender discrimination in nationality law is a primary cause of statelessness, but gender discrimination outside the scope of nationality law and discrimination on the basis of birth can also result in statelessness. Here, I explore how genderdiscriminatory civil registration laws, inadequate means to verify paternity, and restrictions on marriages to foreigners, can also generate new cases of statelessness. 2.1. Gender-discriminatory civil registration laws The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)—the most widely ratified international human rights treaty—requires that “each child shall be registered immediately after birth and shall have the right from birth to a name [and] the right to acquire a nationality.”15 All GCC states have ratified the CRC. Birth registration verifies that a child is entitled to nationality through birth in a country’s territory (if nationality is conveyed through birth in territory) or the child’s parentage (if nationality is conveyed through the parents).16 When a child’s birth is not documented, the child’s nationality may not be recognized by his/her state of nationality due to lack of proof. If the child does not have another 8 INSTITUTE ON STATELESSNESS AND INCLUSION, THE WORLD’S STATELESS 105 (Dec. 2014), http://www.institutesi.org/worldsstateless.pdf (noting “substantial under-reporting on statelessness in UNHCR’s statistics with respect to MENA”). 9 UNHCR, STATISTICAL YEARBOOK (2012) 70-73, http://www.unhcr.org/52a723f89.html 10 L VAN WAAS, THE SITUATION OF STATELESS PERSONS IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA, 2-3 (Oct. 2010), http://www.refworld.org/pdfid/4cea28072.pdf; E Dickinson, Kuwait's Bidoon may Still be in Limbo, THE NATIONAL, (April 1, 2013), http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/middle-east/kuwaits-bidoon-may-still-be-in-limbo 11 PALESTINIAN CENTRAL BUREAU OF STATISTICS, PALESTINIANS AT THE END OF YEAR 2003 (Dec. 2003); BADIL, 2005 HANDBOOK (2005), http://www.badil.org/phocadownload/Badil_docs/publications/handbook/ch1.pdf 12 L Van Waas, The situation of Stateless Persons in the Middle East and North Africa, supra note 7, at 2-3. 13 BAHRAIN CENTER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS, STATELESS IN BAHRAIN (Sept. 24, 2014); The Economist, Human Rights in the Gulf: The New Unpeople: Statelessness as Punishment against Political Dissent in the Gulf, Nov. 15, 2014, http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21632640-statelessness-punishment-against-political-dissentgulf-new-unpeople 14 I would like to note that the label ‘technical causes’ should not obscure that many of these causes are also discrimination forbidden by international law. Some individuals are rendered stateless through truly technical causes. A child could be born in a country with jus sanguinis nationality to parents who are nationals of a country with a jus soli system. The child would then be ineligible for nationality from either the place of birth or her parents’ country of nationality. However, when a child is rendered stateless because she cannot receive her mother’s nationality, for example, this is not simply an unlucky ‘technicality’ resulting in a violation of the child’s right to a nationality. The mother’s basic right to non-discrimination on the basis of gender has been violated also. Thus, where statelessness is created by a gap in law relating to discrimination on the basis of gender or birth status, we should not hesitate to name it as a violation of international human rights as well as a ‘technical’ cause of statelessness. 15 Convention on the Rights of the Child, art. 7, Nov. 20, 1989, 1577 U.N.T.S. 3. 16 L VAN WAAS, NATIONALITY MATTERS (2008). 2