FREEDOM AGENDA: WIVES OF STATELESS MEN FOCUS ON

UNCLAS KUWAIT 000746 SIPDIS SIPDIS FOR NEA/ARPI E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV PHUM KU SUBJECT: FREEDOM AGENDA: WIVES OF STATELESS MEN FOCUS ON TAKING ADVANTAGE OF NEW ELECTORAL POWER REF: KUWAIT 540 ¶1. Summary and Comment: A March 4 meeting of Kuwaiti women married to "bidoon" (stateless Arabs) serves as a positive indicator that MEPI programs are reaching and influencing targeted audiences in Kuwait. Echoing themes researched by a recent MEPI small grant recipient for a project on how Kuwaiti laws do not give equal rights to women (reftel),a Kuwaiti female lawyer made a presentation to the group. Media coverage of the event highlighted unequal treatment. Another MEPI small grant recipient at the meeting focused on the impact female suffrage will have on the political landscape, particularly with respect to women's rights. We expect that the new electoral power of Kuwaiti women increasingly will energize a political process that has let issues of civil rights and equal treatment under the law languish. End Summary and Comment. ¶2. Several hundred people -- a majority of them women -- gathered under a tent in a sandy lot in the Sulaibiya neighborhood just west of Kuwait City on the evening of March 4 to discuss the problem of Kuwait's "bidoon" (stateless) population. The forum focused on Kuwaiti women who were married to bidoon men. After a short legal presentation by Dr. Badria Al-Awadhi, a regular participant in MEPI programs, a number of women took the microphone and spoke about the issues they face. Even if these women are Kuwaiti citizens, they cannot pass their citizenship to their children or husbands, thereby making access to schooling, housing, driving licenses, jobs, and health care extremely difficult. ¶3. After the formal program, women clad in black headscarves and veils and bidoon men stayed for several hours to give interviews to Al-Arabiyya television and to commiserate with one another. Several typical comments to PolOff, spoken in alternating tones of anger and anguished helplessness, included: "How can someone go and drive a taxi in the U.S. or Canada for a few years and become a citizen, when our families have been here for generations and we're not citizens?"; "The (ruling) Al-Sabah family are immigrants from the Najd area (of Saudi Arabia),so how can they deny others who are the descendants of Arabian nomads?"; "Why should my son go to school and study when he won't be able to work even if he is the best student in Kuwait." At least one Kuwaiti woman was vociferously defending the state of Kuwait, making for a raucous, but free expression of ideas. Note: many bidoon are reticent to speak publicly about the problems they face, since they fear harassment by police who act with impunity. End Note. ¶4. Dr. Rola Dashti, a MEPI small grants recipient, chairperson of the Kuwait Economic Society and the first woman to declare herself as a candidate for parliamentary elections in 2007, told POLOFF after the gathering that there are 2,000 Kuwaiti women in the Sulaibiya area who are married to bidoon men. Currently Kuwaiti electoral districts are so small that 2,000 votes might be enough to win a seat in parliament. These women, therefore, represent not only themselves, but their disadvantaged relatives, and are an example of the change in the political landscape created by the 2005 decision to give women the right to vote. Dr. Dashti also observed that there is ongoing debate in the National Assembly focusing on the contentious issue of citizenship. She recommended immediately giving the bidoon a legal status less than citizenship that would allow them to work, drive, attend the university, etc. (Note: There is a small percentage of bidoon who objected to anything less than full citizenship and therefore remain stateless by choice. Bidoon affairs are currently administered by a Ministry of Interior body called the Illegal Residents Committee. The use of the term illegal is particularly galling. End Note.) ********************************************* * For more reporting from Embassy Kuwait, visit: http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/nea/kuwait/?cable s Visit Kuwait's Classified Website: http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/nea/kuwait/ ********************************************* * LEBARON