Minority Rights Group International — World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples: Kuwait — Bidoon (updated December 2017)

Origins: most Bidoon come from tribes present in Kuwait at independence in 1961 who did not register under the 1959 Nationality Law, whose process 'inherently favoured Kuwait's urban residents and those who were connected to influential tribes or families'; 'approximately one third of the population of Kuwait at the time did not obtain citizenship'. A second, smaller group were recruits from neighbouring Arab states registered as bidoon in the army and police; until the 1990s 'around 80 per cent of the armed forces were Bidoon'.

Turning points: in 1986 the government reclassified Bidoon as 'illegal residents'; in 1988 an appeal court ruled that, as no other state considered them nationals, they could not be treated as 'aliens', a ruling the government ignored. After the 1990–91 invasion the population fell 'from a pre-war population of approximately 250,000 to only around 100,000'; about 10,000 were deported. In the 1990s many bought fake foreign passports, 'a process that appears to have taken place with the knowledge and even the encouragement of the Kuwaiti government', and possession of such passports was later used against their nationality claims.

Status and documents: a 2000 law allowed naturalisation of those in the 1965 census, but the annual quota of 2,000 'was never met'. Bidoon hold green, yellow or red 'reference' cards; those without cards are 'excluded from accessing the most basic rights and facing the constant risk of arrest'. Civil documents (birth, marriage and death certificates) require permission from the Central System to Resolve Illegal Residents' Status, and applicants are often told to 'resolve their status' by confirming another nationality, forfeiting any claim to Kuwaiti citizenship. Children of Kuwaiti mothers and Bidoon fathers are also Bidoon.

Services and livelihoods: no right to public schooling (most attend private schools with 30 per cent of fees paid by families); Kuwait University admits at most 100 Bidoon a year with a 90 per cent average and security clearance; public-sector 'remuneration for work' contracts without benefits; no commercial licences or property ownership; limited government health insurance. Most live in settlements on the outskirts of Kuwait City, Tayma, Sulaibiyya and Ahmadi.

Policy: the government considers only 34,000 eligible for citizenship; in November 2015 it announced that 7,000 had 'resolved their status' by declaring foreign nationalities; talks with Comoros on passports for Bidoon were revealed in 2014; in April 2017 descendants of former Bidoon soldiers were again allowed to enlist, with 20,000 applications in three days. The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (September 2017) called for written, reasoned and appealable decisions on nationality applications. Kuwait is not party to the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.

USE IN A REPORT: background and chronology in one place — particularly the card-colour system and the Central System's role in civil documentation, which map onto the documented/undocumented distinction in NM (Kuwait) CG [2013] UKUT 356, and the history of purchased foreign passports, which is relevant wherever another nationality is alleged.

For caseworkers and experts: a well-organised secondary synthesis, most useful for context and chronology — the 1986 reclassification, the 1988 court ruling, the post-1991 fall in numbers, and the card system through which documented and undocumented status is in practice determined. Its account of foreign passports bought in the 1990s with official acquiescence is particularly relevant when a claimant is said to hold another nationality, since possession of such a document does not of itself establish genuine nationality. As a secondary source, specific facts should be traced to the primary reporting it draws on (UN treaty bodies, Human Rights Watch, government statements) before being relied on as decisive.