Kuwait Times, Saturday, Jan 23, 2021 | Jamadi Al Thani
10, 1442
MP demands civil rights for bedoons
Kuwait:
Opposition MP Thamer Al-Suwait yesterday submitted a draft law
stipulating wide-ranging civil and humanitarian rights including a permanent
residency for tens of thousands of stateless people or bedoons who have been
living for decades in the country. The lawmaker called for ending what he called
a “state of legislative paralysis” regarding the humanitarian cause of bedoons,
whose plight has been repeatedly debated by parliaments over the past few
decades but without reaching a conclusive solution.
Some 120,000 bedoons live in the country and claim the right to Kuwaiti
citizenship, saying their forefathers lived in Kuwait decades ago. The
government however insists that only less than a third of them qualify for
consideration for Kuwaiti citizenship, while the rest are nationals of
neighboring countries. In recent years, MPs sympathetic to the rights of bedoons
have called for granting them basic rights in education, jobs and health while
authorities continue to investigate if they have a right to citizenship.
The draft law stipulates that bedoons be granted special identification cards
through which they can have access to civil and social rights, mainly permanent
residency in the country. Based on the cards, bedoons will be entitled to free
medication and healthcare, including for bedoons with special needs.
Bedoons will also get free school and university education, birth and death
certificates, driving licenses and passports based on the law, and the right to
work in the public and private sectors with equal treatment to citizens of the
Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states. The bill also calls for allowing bedoons
to own real estate for private housing only, get all personal status rights like
marriage and divorce certificates and also obtain end of service indemnity and
other financial rights in accordance with the law. Similar laws have been
submitted to the National Assembly in the past and some had been debated, but
without any conclusive result that obliges the government to implement the
proposals.