DESK REVIEW ON POPULATIONS AT RISK OF STATELESSNESS Arabia, it appears that the law would allow registration, and in the UAE there is a preference for registration by the father, but in both cases, it is unclear in practice whether mothers can actually register births.115 “Some, possibly all, GCC states have significant restrictions on the registration of nonmarital children. While Kuwait and Oman’s policies are unclear, birth registration in Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE requires the parents to show documentation of their marriage meaning that for the child’s birth to be registered and to receive nationality, the State must treat the child as one without known parents. The child would receive nationality, but would then have no documented or legal relationship to his or her biological parents.”116 Under the Kuwaiti Civil Status Law,117 Qatari Family Law,118 and UAE Family Law,119 the husband of a child’s mother is presumed to be the father. Saudi Arabia has not codified a civil status or family law, instead applying a form of Islamic Sharia law to the relevant questions. In each of the four countries, if the husband swears a series of oaths that he is not the father, then the presumption of paternity is rebutted.120 Kuwait and UAE laws allow parents to acknowledge paternity outside of marriage, but not in the case of adultery, and there may be no way to forcibly prove paternity in any of the four countries.121 Furthermore, sex outside of marriage is a punishable offense in all four countries: Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and UAE.122 This criminalization is enforced.123 In Kuwait, under Article 194 of the Penal Code, consensual sexual relationships between adults who are not married to each other are punishable by up to three years’ imprisonment, and under Article 195, any married person who has consensual sexual relations with a person other than his or her spouse can be punished by up to five years’ imprisonment. Betsy L. Fisher, Gender Discrimination and Statelessness in the Gulf Cooperation Council States, 23 MICH. J. GENDER& L. 269 (2016). Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mjgl/vol23/iss2/1. 115 116 Ibid. 117 Kuwait Personal Status Law (No. 51/1984) art. 169. 118 Qatar Family Law (No. 22/2006) arts. 86, 88. 119 UAE Family Law (No. 28/2005) art. 90(1). Betsy L. Fisher, Gender Discrimination and Statelessness in the Gulf Cooperation Council States, 23 MICH. J. GENDER& L. 269 (2016). Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mjgl/vol23/iss2/1. See also the relevant family laws. 120 121 Ibid. Kuwait Penal Code Articles 194, 195; Qatar Penal Code Article 181-187; Penal Code of the UAE, Article 356. (Saudi Arabia does not have a codified criminal code, but the justice system fixes punishments based on its interpretation of sharia law.). 122 Betsy L. Fisher, Gender Discrimination and Statelessness in the Gulf Cooperation Council States, 23 MICH. J. GENDER& L. 269 (2016). Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mjgl/vol23/iss2/1. This article uses the Gulf Cooperation Council countries as a case study, analyzes the penal codes and their implementation, to outline some of the ways in which gender and birth status discrimination create new cases of statelessness.). 123 40 UNHCR / April 2021