Manama: A Saudi woman has called for assistance after she discovered that her husband was not a Saudi national and left her, resulting in her children becoming stateless.
Women are not allowed to pass on citizenship in Saudi Arabia.
Umm Khalid said that she had married her husband after he proposed through a friend of the family. Her mother and brother approved the marriage.
However, when she was about to deliver her first baby, he told her that she should not go to a hospital or a clinic and forced her to deliver at her parents’ house.
He did the same with the second baby, the mother added.
The two boys had no birth certificates and could not get any medical treatment in public hospitals or attend school, Saudi daily Okaz reported.
“Whenever I asked him for the family card where the sons are supposedly recorded, he claimed that he needed it and could not pass it to me,” Umm Khalid said.
However, after some time, the woman’s mother insisted on confronting him, following which he admitted that he was living under a false identity and that he was not a Saudi national.
The situation was compounded when he tore up all papers and divorced her, abandoning the family without leaving a trace.
The mother said her condition was bad as her two sons were growing up.
“They can be expelled from school at any time as they do not have proper documents to continue their studies,” she said. “I contacted the embassy of my former husband to apply for passports for my two sons, but officials requested evidence about their father, which I could not provide,” she said.
