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  • Kuwait: Gender Discrimination Creates Statelessness and Endangers Families
    10/17/2011
    Gender discrimination in Kuwait’s nationality laws increases the incidence of statelessness by rendering children of Kuwaiti women and bidoun men stateless. Statelessness exposes women to heightened risks of abuse and exploitation. It also endangers family life.
  • Kuwait: Still Stalling on Statelessness
    05/12/2010
    The government of Kuwait continues to balk at granting nationality to its approximately 90,000 stateless residents, or bidoon. Lack of legal status impacts all areas of their lives. Kuwait must begin immediate and transparent reviews of all bidoon cases towards providing naturalization. Meanwhile Kuwait should guarantee the bidoon the right to work and earn equitable incomes, allow their children to enroll in public schools, provide them healthcare free of charge, and issue certificates that record births, marriages, and deaths. With Kuwait about to enter the UN Universal Periodic Review process on May 12, other states have an immediate opportunity to press the country to take these steps to address the statelessness problem.
  • Statelessness: International Blind Spot Linked to Global Concerns
    09/02/2009
    When world leaders gather to address hot issues such as security, governance, poverty, discrimination, human trafficking, and climate change, they invariably skirt around one of the problems that links them all: statelessness. Taking steps to uphold the nationality rights of the more than 12 million stateless persons around the world could go a long way toward responding to these inter-related challenges.
  • Kuwait: Honor Nationality Rights of the Bidun
    09/17/2008
    Kuwait must begin immediate and transparent reviews of all bidun cases towards providing naturalization and at the same time consider undertaking a tolerance campaign to address discrimination in the society at large. Kuwait should provide civil registry and social services equitably, particularly ensuring that birth certificates, inclusive of name, are provided for all children. The Government of Kuwait must move to resolve statelessness within its borders.
  • Kuwait: State of Exclusion
    07/25/2007

    The Arabic word, “bidun,” meaning “without” and short for “bidun jinsiya” (without citizenship), is used to denote longtime residents of Kuwait who are stateless.  The estimated number of bidun in Kuwait ranges from 90,000 to 130,000, less than half the number who resided in the country prior to Iraq’s invasion in 1990. Those who remain are subject to systematic discrimination and their future is uncertain.