Estimates of the bidoon population range from 93, to ,βaround ten percent of the Kuwaiti citizenry. Why don't we have a better idea how many they are? Believe it or not, one of the richest countries on earth simply cannot be bothered to document the size of its stateless population, let alone resolve this longstanding problem.
While Kuwaiti citizens enjoy a huge range of financial luxuries by virtue of being citizens, stateless people in the small country live in slum-like settlements on the outskirts of its cities. The explanations are many, and some people I have spoken to believe that ultimately it boils down to Kuwaiti politics being extremely elitist, and essentially lacking in sympathy for people who are less well-positioned in the social and economic hierarchy.
Conversations I have had with policy makers further reinforce this. Many Kuwaiti policy-makers claim that the bidoon are not in fact stateless, but rather that they are nationals of other statesβIraq, Syria, and Saudi Arabia. In Kuwait last week, I spoke with several stateless persons and while one personal story differs from another, they have in common that they can show a connection to Kuwait that goes back to the pre-independence periodβbe it the ID card of a grandfather born in what is now Kuwait in , or their own birth records from the s.
And not only is Kuwait not doing anything about the statelessness issue, but the vast majority of the bidoon lack even the most basic civil rights. One man I spoke to, who is married to a Kuwaiti national, has four children who cannot get birth certificates, and, as a result, the authorities refuse to admit them to public schools.
How does this happen? When a woman, whether Kuwaiti or bidoon or a foreign national, gives birth she receives from the hospital a record of the birth which, by law, must be traded in for a birth certificate within two weeks. Even in cases where the parents do sign the hospital record, they must provide their marriage certificate in order for the authorities to issue a birth certificate.
