Five Islamist lawmakers yesterday submitted a draft law calling to amend the nationality law of 1959 to grant foreign husbands of Kuwaiti women and their children Kuwaiti citizenship. The five MPs, Awwad Al-Enezi, Khaled Al-Adwah, Abdullah Okash, Hussein Al-Mutairi and Mukhled Al-Azemi, called in the bill for the addition of two provisions to Kuwaiti nationality law.

In the first, they propose that children born to a Kuwaiti woman and her foreign husband are entitled to Kuwaiti citizenship when they become adults provided they maintain legal residence in the country and forfeit their original nationality.

They said that this applies only if the husband is originally Muslim and Arab or a bedoon, a stateless Arab. The same applies to children whom their foreign fathers have divorced their Kuwaiti mothers or have died.
Such children have to be treated as Kuwaitis until they become adults, the amendment proposes.

In the second amendment, the MPs proposed that foreign husbands of Kuwaiti women have the right to claim Kuwaiti citizenship after five years of marriage. Their minor children also have the same right.

The interior minister has the right to exempt them from any or all the conditions, including the five-year period. The bill stipulates that people who obtain the Kuwaiti citizenship under the amendments must drop their other nationality within three months or will automatically lose their Kuwaiti citizenship.

Under Kuwaiti nationality law, foreign husbands of Kuwaiti women and their children don't have the right to apply for Kuwaiti citizenship.

On the contrary, foreign wives of Kuwaiti men have the right to obtain the Kuwaiti citizenship after five years of marriage, provided they have children.

Islamist lawmakers who have strongly opposed women's political rights have vowed to submit a number of bills to help Kuwaiti women get their social rights.

In another development, Islamist MP Jassem Al-Kundari said yesterday that he will soon submit to Speaker Jassem Al-Khorafi a disclosure of his wealth, like Islamist MPs Nasser Al-Sane and Mohammad Al-Busairi who made the disclosure last Monday.

Kundari hoped that a draft law stipulating to make the disclosure of wealth compulsory for senior government officials and MPs, will be passed during January 23 session when corruption will be debated.
MPs in favour of the bill insist that the law will greatly reduce corruption and graft that have been on the rise in the country.