(MENAFN) On Tuesday, Kuwait's National Assembly (parliament) granted permission for the second reading of a draft legislation that would, if passed, allow "stateless people" -residents of Kuwait who do not have citizenship- to serve in the army.
The reading was approved by a vote of 52 to 5 with one lawmaker abstaining, according to the official KUNA news agency.
Parliament approved a first reading of the bill last month.
Although, Kuwait's chief of general staff allowed stateless people, locally known as "Bedoon", to join the oil-rich country's ground and air forces in April of last year, Defense Minister Mohammed al-Khalid al-Sabah had said that only those stateless people whose fathers had served in the army would be allowed to join the country's armed forces.
Although there are approximately 96,000 stateless people in Kuwait, Bedoon still deprived from Kuwaiti citizenship and are viewed as illegal immigrants by the Kuwaiti authorities according to official estimates.
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