Long road to equality

The Kuwaiti government is planning to submit a proposal to the National Assembly in the near future, demanding an amendment to the Nationality Law to grant citizenship to non-Kuwaiti men married to Kuwaiti women.

The proposal reminded me of a comedy play that was performed by renowned Kuwait actors in 1971 and discussed the conditions and obstacles to marriages among Kuwaitis.

The play addressed a social issue that was in the limelight in the 1970s and highlighted the two main reasons for this problem in Kuwaiti society — family lineage and social status.

Society was divided into the noble people and the commoners. The noble people did not allow their daughters to marry men from "lower classes", especially after the discovery of oil, which resulted in changing the lifestyles of Kuwaitis and the spread of education among people from the business and "upper classes".

However, Kuwaitis did not cope well with these changes due to the cultural aspects of the tribal society. This led to an increase in the number of unmarried women.

If the "husband-is-required-soon" formula helped tackle the phenomenon of social status and the repercussions of social classifications, the Kuwaiti government's proposal to grant citizenship to non-Kuwaiti men married to Kuwaiti women could solve the problem that has resulted from the post-modernity era.

The chances of foreign spouses of Kuwaiti women getting citizenship, based on the proposed conditions, are next to nil. As per these conditions, the couple must have been married for at least 10 years and have five children.

Then, after obtaining Kuwaiti nationality, the husband will not have the right to marry any other woman and the woman will not have the right to file for divorce and marry another man.

Naturalised husbands will not have the right to apply for government housing loans, vote or run for election, but the wives will be able to apply for housing loans as long as the husband's name is not included in the ownership deed.

Naturalisation drive

It is estimated that there are more than 12,000 Kuwaiti women married to non-Kuwaiti men, half of whom are stateless. The problem for many such women was solved after the naturalisation of 7,315 stateless householders in the past 10 years, according to information provided by Lieutenant Colonel Mohammad Al Waheeb from the Interior Ministry, to the Human Rights Council in Geneva.

The naturalisation of 7,315 men, given that the average family size is seven, simply means that about 50,000 have been naturalised, while the total number of stateless people in Kuwait is now 93,334. The Kuwaiti Nationality Law grants special care to children of Kuwaiti women married to foreigners, whether divorced or widowed, as it allows the Interior Ministry to treat these children as Kuwaitis until they reach the legal age and most of these children are then granted Kuwaiti nationality.

Some public affairs activists, especially women, are pushing for amending the Kuwaiti Nationality Law to treat children born to Kuwaiti women married to non-Kuwaiti men in the same way as children born to Kuwaiti men married to foreign women — an approach adopted by some Arab countries, such as Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt and Jordan.

Kuwait's Nationality Law denies Kuwaiti women the right to pass on their nationality to their children and spouses, while Kuwaiti men are allowed to do so. The wife of a Kuwaiti man is granted immediate residency by virtue of marriage and she can become a Kuwaiti citizen after 10 years of marriage or less if she is a Gulf citizen.

It is strange that the four women MPs resorted to political realism as the problem of these women is no longer of interest, as demonstrated in the celebration they held to mark their first anniversary of entry into the National Assembly. However, they made some other demands such as the rights to housing for Kuwaiti women married to foreigners as well as the rights of their children to education and health care.

Although I hope the government plan on the naturalisation of foreign spouses of Kuwaiti women will see the light of day, I consider it a step in the long direction towards equality.

Dr Mohammad Hussain Al Yusefi teaches at Kuwait University.