Home | Databases | WorldLII | Search | Feedback Edited Legal Collections Data

Shiblak, Abbas --- "Arabia’s Bidoon" [2011] ELECD 177; in Blitz, K. Brad; Lynch, Maureen (eds), "Statelessness and Citizenship" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: Statelessness and Citizenship

Editor(s): Blitz, K. Brad; Lynch, Maureen

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781849800679

Section: Chapter 10

Section Title: Arabia’s Bidoon

Author(s): Shiblak, Abbas

Number of pages: 22

Extract:

10. Arabia's Bidoon
Abbas Shiblak

The word Bidoon is an Arabic term meaning `without'. It is used in Arabia
and the Gulf States for those who are without nationality.1 Most of the
Bidoon are people who have been long settled in Kuwait and nearby
states, and the majority of them are Bedouins of nomadic origin. However,
these categories are not coterminous and one should not confuse the term
Bidoon with that of Bedouin. It has been estimated that the number of
Bidoon in Kuwait before the Iraqi invasion of 1990 was between 240 000
and 250 000, but (although the full scope of the problem in the region is
unknown) that figure is estimated to have been cut in half in the aftermath
of the invasion to approximately 80 000­120 000 persons.2
This chapter focuses on the situation of the Bidoon in countries the
researcher visited in 2009 ­ Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman. In addition,
the researcher gathered desk information and conducted interviews with
human rights experts and exiles in Europe to learn more about other Gulf
States that the team was not able to visit.
Focusing primarily on Kuwait because of the size of the population,
the research examines the causes of the phenomenon of statelessness in a
lightly populated but rich oil-producing country where issues of security
and the place of foreign migrant workers remain highly sensitive. The first
section describes Kuwait's nationality law while the second part examines
the human impact of ...