A Family Destroyed
“Our family was destroyed for the sake of papers,” lamented
Rania, the articulate and outspoken daughter of a Kuwaiti
mother and a stateless father. In Kuwait, citizenship is passed
on to children through their fathers, and so the children of a
Kuwaiti woman and a bidun husband are also bidun.
Nevertheless, the child of a divorced Kuwaiti woman or
widow can acquire citizenship, so that there is an incentive
for couples to divorce for the sake of their children. Rania’s
parents took this painful decision after she and Mohammad,
the oldest son in the family, were unable to enroll in college.
As bidun they had been barred from admission to Kuwait
University. Both sister and brother attempted unsuccessfully to
enroll in colleges in other Arab countries; however, bidun carry
distinctive gray passports, and both were denied visas.
With the parents now divorced, three younger siblings are
enrolled in Kuwait University. They are treated as Kuwaiti
citizens, but only insofar as their education is concerned and
only until the age of 21. One of the three siblings, having
recently turned 21, might well lose her place in the university.
Both Mohammad and Rania, who recently graduated from a
private college, are waiting for action to be taken on their
citizenship applications. Rania has been waiting two years.
“Our lives are on hold,” she said.
Following the divorce, the father, a one-time successful
businessman with roots in Kuwait going back over 60 years,
traveled to Saudi Arabia in the hope of gaining citizenship
there. To date he has been unsuccessful in his attempts.
Mohammad set aside his plans for further education. Now
man of the house, he speaks with his father on the telephone
every day. Separated for five years, he badly wants to visit him
in Saudi Arabia, but has been unable to obtain a visa.
“There is no importance given to the issue of the bidun,”
Rania said. There is fear that granting us citizenship would
somehow change the essence of what Kuwaiti means.”
Both sister and brother remember distinctly when they became
aware of being stateless. “I first became aware of the problem
when I was being admitted to school as a seven year old. I
didn’t have a civil ID . It was a shock.” Mohammad remembers
that he lay awake all night, repeating the word “bidun” and
wondering what it meant.
Shortly after this story was compiled, Rania wrote to author Patrick
Barbieri, “I was very pleased to get your email. Any news? Yes!
Mohammad was admitted to university [private]. We are very
thrilled. In fact, tomorrow he will have his first placement test.”
We wish him success.
* * * *
No Day in Court
“My wife has said that she wishes she could give me her
citizenship. Then she would be able to apply for citizenship
again in 15 years,” Hassan tells Refugees International in his
parents’ home in Jahra. Indeed, Article 8 of Kuwait’s 1959
Citizenship Law allows a foreign woman married to a citizen
to become one after the couple has been married 15 years.
By contrast, a bidun married to a Kuwaiti woman will never
become eligible for citizenship based on marriage.
If he and his wife divorced, his children would be eligible for
citizenship on reaching the age of 21. With gallows humor,
Hassan also mentions that children of a Kuwaiti woman can
become citizens with the death of their bidun father.
One of 11 children, Hassan is the only child with a college
education. He graduated with distinction. Because his wife
is a government employee, they and their three children were
able to rent a home of their own, not far from his parents.
A younger married brother with two children is not as fortunate.
He is unemployed, and his wife is also bidun. The couple and
their children continue to share a cramped bedroom in his
parents’ home. With some embarrassment Hassan recalls a
difficult time earlier in his own marriage, when his wife had
to seek charitable assistance, because he was unemployed.
Hassan holds a supervisory position in the company where
he works, yet his future with the company is insecure. He
recently traveled to another Gulf country to attend a business
conference but was denied entry, because he carried the distinctive
gray passport issued to bidun, which identifies them
as illegal residents in Kuwait. He wishes he could reimburse
his employer the cost of the wasted airfare. On a second occasion,
he was embarrassed when he was barred from entering
a government building in front of his colleagues because he
was bidun.
The “hadhari,” Kuwait’s worldly city-dwellers, are distrustful
of the country’s citizens with tribal backgrounds, who tend to
be more conservative in their outlook. As noted earlier, many
of the bidun are of Bedouin descent. Accordingly, prejudice
toward the Bedouin is perhaps one of the reasons the plight
of the bidun has not been addressed. Neither Hassan nor
his father is ashamed of the family’s Bedouin ancestry.
“My grandfather had a birth certificate and it identified him
as Kuwaiti. He went to work for the Kuwait Oil Company in
1945.” Hassan’s father is nearing retirement and is concerned
about his family’s future, because as a bidun he is ineligible
for a pension.
In Kuwait nationality is a matter relating to sovereignty, and
courts are barred from hearing cases that touch on matters
relating to citizenship. As a consequence, bidun can not resort
to the courts to have their citizenship claims adjudicated. Hassan
believes that the majority of bidun could prove their right to
citizenship. “I wish I could go to court to prove my nationality.”
Although stateless, Hassan holds on to his pride. He drives
a second-hand car and refuses to buy a new one, because he
would not be permitted to register it in his name, but only in
the name of his wife.
* * *
For Other Stories:
Stories are written by Patrick Barbieri, October 2007.
For other related stories, you can download the following PDF file, prepared by Refugees International Organization: file_kuwait_statelessrpt.pdf
