This weekend, Kuwaiti officials attempted to rebuff international criticism of the country's nationality policy - specifically, its persistent discrimination against the stateless bidoun.

“My son heard my husband knocking some nails into the wall and he actually thought this noise was me killing his father,” a Kuwaiti woman, whom I will call Mona, told me. I am currently in Kuwait with my Refugees International colleague, assessing the needs of this country’s stateless population.

Imagine that you have just given birth to a new baby in the country where you, your parents, and perhaps even your grandparents were born. But under current law, you and your baby are considered “illegal residents” of your own country, denied citizenship, and relegated to inferior status for life. In fact, your baby is not even considered worthy of a birth certificate – that is, unless you and your husband agree to be strong-armed into listing yourselves on the certificate as “non-citizens” or even into choosing an artificial nationality for the sake of your child's future.

At an open-air rally in Kuwait, Refugees International’s Maureen Lynch and I were escorted to the front of the seated gathering as honored guests. We were there in the country for an eight-day visit to assess the current circumstances under which Kuwait’s approximately 90,000 stateless persons, the Bidoon, are living. We also met with government officials, private-sector experts and advocacy groups to identify concrete actions to secure the Bidoon’s right to nationality in their own country.