Human Rights Watch — World Report 2017: Kuwait (events of 2016)

Migrant workers: two-thirds of the population are migrant workers under the kafala system. A 2016 administrative decision allowed some migrant workers to transfer sponsorship without the employer's consent after three years; these reforms 'do not extend to migrant domestic workers'. In July 2016 the Interior Ministry issued implementing regulations for the 2015 domestic workers law and a minimum wage for domestic workers of KD60 (US$200). The law still lacks enforcement mechanisms such as labour inspections. Authorities deported 14,400 migrants in the first four months of 2016, according to local media.

Freedom of expression: provisions of the constitution, penal code, Printing and Publication Law, Misuse of Telephone Communications and Bugging Devices Law, Public Gatherings Law and National Unity Law were used to prosecute journalists, politicians and activists. 'Many, if not most, initial complaints in these cases are filed by individuals.' Courts issued deportation orders in some cases, including against Bidun, 'although Kuwaiti officials reported these orders would not be implemented'. In June 2016 the election law was amended to bar from running or voting all those convicted of 'insulting' God, the prophets or the emir. The Cybercrime Law went into effect in 2016.

Bidun: 'At least 105,702 Bidun residents of Kuwait remain stateless.' Claims have for decades been left with administrative committees; authorities describe many Bidun as 'illegal residents' who destroyed evidence of another nationality. Article 12 of the 1979 Public Gatherings Law bars non-Kuwaitis from public gatherings. A Comoros official told Gulf News that Comoros was open to Kuwaiti suggestions that Kuwait pay it to grant Bidun 'economic citizenship', which would render them liable to deportation as foreign nationals.

Also recorded: the 2015 law requiring DNA samples from all citizens, visitors and residents, found by the UN Human Rights Committee in July 2016 to impose 'unnecessary and disproportionate restrictions on the right to privacy', and the emir's direction to amend it; discrimination against women in personal status law and in the transmission of nationality ('Kuwaiti women married to non-Kuwaitis … cannot pass citizenship to their children or spouses'); criminalisation of same-sex relations between men (up to seven years) and of 'imitating the opposite sex'; at least nine death sentences in 2015 and 2016; and the US upgrade of Kuwait to Tier 2 in the 2016 Trafficking in Persons Report after nine years at Tier 3.

USE IN A REPORT: a contemporaneous annual account of conditions in 2016, useful to date a claimant's narrative against the country evidence of the time — in particular the 105,702 figure, the officially stated non-implementation of deportation orders against Bidun, and the Comoros proposal, which later surfaces in claims involving foreign documents held by Bidun.

For caseworkers and representatives: the most citable points are specific and datable — the 105,702 stateless figure, the June 2016 electoral disqualification for 'insulting' offences, the Cybercrime Law's entry into force, and the Comoros 'economic citizenship' proposal, which is relevant whenever a Bidun claimant is alleged to hold another nationality. HRW is an advocacy organisation; its reports are routinely given weight by tribunals, and carry most weight where a point is corroborated by the US State Department or UN treaty-body material for the same period. Read with the World Report 2018 chapter, also on this Dossier, for how these developments carried into 2017.