Amnesty International — “I Don't Have a Future”: Stateless Kuwaitis and the Right to Education (MDE 17/6990/2023)

METHOD. Research ran from May to December 2022, including a visit to Kuwait on 22–29 June 2022 (al-Ahmadi, al-Farwaniya, al-Jahra and Capital governorates). Amnesty interviewed 29 Kuwaitis: 24 stateless, from 22 families; four recognised nationals; and one whose status is before the courts. Requests to visit schools were refused because of the summer vacation. A letter of 30 June to the Prime Minister and Minister of Education received no reply.

SIZE AND ORIGINS (section 3.1). Registration of nationals in 1959–1965 favoured Kuwait City, and many rural and migratory tribes were not registered. A 1980 amendment removed nationality for children of Kuwaiti mothers and stateless fathers. From 1987 the Bidun were treated as foreign residents and hence "illegal residents"; Cabinet Decision No. 915 of 1 July 2013, unpublished, ordered that term used. Central System figures fall from 105,000 (2010) to 83,000 (2021), but the Central System's own "adjustment of status" figures (18,427 reclassified as foreign nationals by October 2022) explain most of the fall. Amnesty therefore treats the 2013 figure of 111,493, given to parliament, as the best starting point, about 10% of recognised nationals.

GOVERNANCE (3.2–3.3). Under Decree No. 467 of 2010 the Central System is the sole authority on Bidun affairs. Services depend on its "Review Card", which states on its reverse that it "shall not be considered a personal identity document". Eight of 20 eligible families were told the card would be renewed only if they signed that they were Iraqi; four showed documents evidencing the change. A court in one such case ruled against the Central System, which would not produce its claimed evidence of Iraqi nationality. Decisions governing entitlements are unpublished: Cabinet Decisions 1612/1 (2010), 409 (2011) and 1010 (2012), and Ministry of Education Decisions 224–225 (2014). Amnesty checked the Gazette for the relevant months and did not find them. Naturalisation is discretionary within an annual statutory quota. In April 2022 the Court of Cassation held all nationality matters outside the courts' jurisdiction.

DOCUMENT TIERS (4.1). The tiers run from a valid Review Card plus a Ministry of Health birth certificate and Civil ID number (with privileged categories above that), down to an expired or never-held card, and finally a hospital birth report only, or nothing. A child born while the parents' cards had expired receives only a carbon copy of the hospital report and cannot obtain a Civil ID number. In June 2022 the cabinet instructed ministries to process no transactions for Bidun without a valid card, and partly exempted the Ministry of Education on 22 September 2022, after private-school classes had begun.

SCHOOLS (4.2–4.3). Compulsory state education is by law for "Kuwaiti children". Government schools admit Bidun children only in exceptional categories:
- children of fathers employed by the Ministries of Health or Education;
- children of fathers or paternal grandfathers who served in the military or police without being discharged;
- children of Kuwaiti mothers;
- children whose paternal grandmother was Kuwaiti;
- children whose paternal grandfather was a "martyr".

Since 2022, new registrations in these categories are limited to first grade. Ten members of five families had never been educated; four of the five families gave lack of documents as the reason. The Charitable Fund for Education of Needy Children (2003) assisted 13,327 children in 2021–22, under 3% of non-Kuwaiti school-age children, and no interviewed family had full costs covered. Amnesty estimates spending per pupil at about 265–300 dinars from the Fund against 2,720–4,089 dinars in the government system (2010–2013). Families estimated private class sizes at a median of 40 students, against about 28 in government schools. Official 2019–20 student–teacher ratios are 15.6 in private schools and 5.5 in government schools.

UNIVERSITY (4.4). The Central System must approve every Bidun admission to Kuwait University, and only card-holders qualify. The quota was 15 until 2012, then about 180–270 new admissions a year (1,126 Bidun students in 2022–23, about 3.8% of Kuwaiti students). Only one known Bidun admission to the College of Medicine since 2011 was identified. Scholarships abroad are for nationals only. Study abroad requires an "Article 17 passport", issued at discretion under Act No. 11 of 1962 on Passports, Art. 17(2), whose text covers only non-Kuwaiti government employees on official duty. From 2011 to 2021, degrees of Bidun graduates who had been assigned a nationality stated that nationality.

RECOMMENDATIONS (5). Amend the Nationality Law so that children who would otherwise be stateless acquire nationality, and so that women transmit it equally. Publish naturalisation criteria. Allow judicial review. Stop assigning foreign nationalities. Provide free primary-to-secondary education for all Bidun. End the university quota. Publish all Bidun-related decisions.

USE IN A REPORT: this is the most detailed recent documentation of how a Bidun person's documentation level determines access to education, of the Article 17 passport's legal basis and practice, and of the assignment of Iraqi or other nationalities through Review Card renewals. All three are frequently in issue in Bidun asylum and statelessness claims. Cite the section and the footnoted Kuwaiti source (Central System, parliamentary answers, press) where the report gives one.

The report's evidence is of three kinds, and a report citing it should say which it relies on. First, interviews with a small, self-selected group (22 families), which the report does not present as representative. Second, the Central System's own published figures and parliamentary answers. Third, legislation and official statistics. The figures on the size of the Bidun population and on "adjustment of status" come from the second kind and are the government's own. The report predates the 2024–2026 changes to the Nationality Law and the withdrawals of nationality recorded elsewhere on the Dossier; its account of education rules reflects 2022–2023. The press release of 17 August 2023 that accompanied the report summarises it and adds nothing to it.