By Amanda Wilson

When Mona Kareem, a member of the Bidoun population of Kuwait, was 11 years old, a neighbour Kuwaiti woman asked her where she was from. When Kareem answered, "I am from Bidoun," the woman laughed at her. "There is no country called Bidoun. There is no Bidoun."

That was the moment, Kareem said, when she came to the harsh realisation that being Bidoun and being Kuwaiti were not the same thing.

Kareem shared her story Tuesday at a conference on statelessness and gender discrimination organised by Refugees International (RI) at the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP). It was, she said, the first time anyone from Kuwait's Bidoun community had ever shared their story in the U.S.

Estimated to be about 100,000, the Bidoun, which means "without" in Arabic, live their lives without any nationality in Kuwait and other states. Although they are culturally and linguistically no different from Kuwaiti citizens, Bidoun are treated as "illegal residents" there, RI reports.

Their stateless status blocks them from access to the privileges and rights Kuwaiti citizens enjoy such as drivers' licenses and birth, death, marriage, and divorce certificates.

At the conference, international human rights advocates urged countries around the world to take action on issues of statelessness, a legally invisible status that United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Antonia Guterres, said Tuesday is "probably the most forgotten global human rights problem in today's international agenda".

According to RI, about 12 million people worldwide lack effective citizenship, a status that deprives them of rights such as legal representation, identity documents, and access to public schools. And in many countries, discrimination against women in nationality laws aggravate or actively create statelessness.

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