Introduction

In July Refugees International visited Kuwait to look into the plight of 90,000-130,000 bidun, Arabic for “without” and short for bidun jinsiya (without citizenship). Over the years, the bidun have been called by various names. Early on they were benignly called “awlaad al-badiya,” (children of the desert). At present, they are officially — and more ominously — designated as illegal residents.

More than 11 million people around the world lack effective nationality. Either having never acquired citizenship in the countries where they were born, or having lost it, they have no legal bond of nationality with any state. Kuwait’s bidun did not become stateless as a result of war, forced migration, or redrawing of borders between states. On the contrary, it was an absence of permanent borders that gave rise, in large part, to the problem of statelessness.

During the vexatious negotiations to set the borders between Saudi Arabia and its neighbors, Kuwait and Iraq, in 1922 (the 'Uqair Conference), Abdul Aziz ibn Saud, the founder of Saudi Arabia, insisted that borders be defined by people and not territory and reflect the movements of Bedouin tribes. A permanent border between Kuwait and Saudi Arabia was not fixed until 1970, and Saudi Arabia’s border with Iraq was set only in 1991, after the first Persian Gulf War. Many of Kuwait’s stateless residents today are affiliated with the cAnazeh, Shammar, Abu Kamel and other tribes that for generations roamed freely across the borders of present day Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iraq.

The country’s 1959 Nationality Law, which became increasingly restrictive with each revision since, contributed further to the problem of statelessness. It defined nationals as persons who were settled in Kuwait prior to 1920 and who maintained their normal residence there until the date of the publication of the law. It was, coincidentally, in that year that a three-meter high mud brick wall was raised around the city to keep out raiding Bedouin (a first wall had been built in 1770 and another in 1815). Nomads living outside the city walls, in the desert, or “badiya,” were classified at the time as stateless. Some failed to understand the importance of citizenship and neglected to claim it. Others were loath to abandon a centuries-old way of life, or were illiterate and thus unable to furnish documentation proving that they were settled in the country.

For several decades bidun enjoyed the same privileges and services as citizens and constituted the bulk of Kuwait’s armed forces and police. They believed that they would one day be made citizens. Then, in 1985, the government introduced a number of draconian measures that stripped them of their identity. Bidun were dismissed from positions in the public sector, children were barred from schools, both public and private, and driving licenses were revoked.

Following the country’s liberation from Iraqi occupation in 1991, the government stepped up its efforts to curtail the rights of the bidun. They were fired en masse from their positions in the military and police, and only a small fraction was allowed to return. Those dismissed were never paid their entitlements.

At present the bidun live in a bureaucratic gray area. They are not allowed to register officially the birth of a child, a marriage, or a death. They are not permitted to own property or register vehicles. Education and healthcare offered free of charge to citizens is denied them. One young woman described the plight of the bidun straightforwardly, “We are people who don’t exist.”

Bidun face systematic discrimination and ill treatment at every turn, and their future is uncertain at best. Unable to afford tuition, they can not pursue a higher education. Barred from employment in the public sector, they are constrained to accept work that is poorly paid and intermittent. Many are reluctant to marry, because they can not support a family and fear that their children would face the same hardships.

To date, bidun have lived within the law. The older generation has waited patiently for a solution, but there is fear that the younger one will show less restraint. “We see the violence in other countries in the Middle East and how people suffer. We don’t want that for Kuwait,” one bidun man told Refugees International.

There are however several encouraging signs that the Kuwaiti government and Kuwait’s citizens recognize the need to address the plight of the bidun. In July 2006, for example, parliament created a committee to address the issue. In November 2006 an audience in excess of 5,000 attended a conference organized by the Kuwait Society for Human Rights, held under the title, “Bidun Speak,” the first public event of its kind. More recently, the government announced that 100 places in Kuwaiti universities would be designated for students who are bidun, and earlier this year the parliament approved a law that will grant citizenship to 2,000 bidun. A list of those to be granted citizenship will be approved in October. The bidun themselves and sympathetic citizens have formed a Popular Committee for Support of the Bidun.

These signs would suggest that the time is right for the Kuwaiti government to take courageous steps, whether through legislative or judicial reform, to resolve this contentious issue, accepting the implications, financial, political and otherwise, that these would necessarily entail. Numerous bidun are able to furnish ample proof of their families’ presence in the country for several generations and their loyalty to Kuwait, as well. Their applications for citizenship deserve consideration.

Failing a final, just and equitable resolution of the problem of statelessness, the Kuwaiti government should, at a minimum, address the humanitarian consequences of statelessness. It should guarantee the bidun the right to work and earn equitable incomes, allow their children to enroll in public schools, provide them healthcare free of charge, and issue all persons certificates that record births, marriages, and deaths, momentous events in the lives of families anywhere in the world. After all, for many years until 1985, when the stateless in Kuwait were still designated “bidun jinsiya,” and not “illegal residents,” they had enjoyed these same rights and privileges.

On the pages that follow are the voices, in English, of several bidun who spoke candidly with Refugees International about the indignities they face on a daily basis. Their names have been changed to protect their identities and those of their families. Their stories illustrate the lives they lead, characterized by fear, worry, insecurity and vulnerability.