Solution to Bedoon issue deliberately delayed: MP
Eight suspicious disability files referred to prosecution
The issue of bedoons or stateless residents needs to be solved as soon as possible because of its humanitarian nature, a lawmaker said yesterday, accusing authorities concerned with the topic of deliberately delaying any solution for the decadesold problem.
MP Abdullah Fahhad Al-Enezi further said in a press statement that the Central Apparatus for Illegal Residents, which was established a number of years ago to find a final solution to the bedoons’ problem, should be dissolved and merged into the Interior Ministry after it failed to achieve its targeted goals.
“This issue bedoons’ has been turned into an experiment field for officials at the central apparatus,” he underlined, noting that many stateless residents remain deprived of basic human rights including access to permanent ‘security IDs’ or any form of identification. Instead of traditional civil IDs, the Kuwaiti government started in recent years to hand over security IDs that can be used to have access to a number government services, but not to all privileges that a civil ID holder normally receives. Furthermore, people that the government says are not qualified for consideration to receive the Kuwaiti citizenship are often given temporary IDs valid for up to six months, while in some cases bedoons were not given any IDs.
The Public Authority for Disabled People’s Affairs is already half way through examining an estimated total of 57,000 files it has for disabled citizens who take advantage of privileges the government provides for people with special needs. So far, only eight cases were referred to the public prosecution on suspicions of forgery, Director Dr Shafiqa Al-Awadhi said during a press conference yesterday. The examination process had went underway recently in order to reveal cases involving people suspected of forging official documents presented to the authority in order to obtain special privileges illegally. Dr Awadi also announced yesterday that a project of ‘automating’ the authority’s services is set to conclude by April, after which finalizing transactions would become available online. She also noted that a new reception lounge is being built at the authority’s building to receive transactions from disabled citizens only, thus helping them avoid crowding.
Dr Nadia Abul, the Deputy Director for Medical Services at the authority, said during the same press conference that examining the files revealed numerous violations, such as forgery to change the severity of the disability without providing due reports. She added that a medical committee comprising 68 doctors was transferred to the authority’s headquarters to facilitate and accelerate finalizing the transactions.
Meanwhile, Deputy Director for Education Services Majed Al-Saleh highlighted the significance of providing quality education at schools for students with special needs, adding that such schools in Kuwait are subjected to periodic quality control inspections. Saleh further indicated that early intervention centers for children up to the age of six are set to open in various areas around Kuwait to provide residents with handy services within their reach.