A child’s residency visa will not be transferred to their mothers in cases where the father has permanently left the country or his residency visa has ended while he was outside the country, or he has passed away, according to the General Department of Residency, reports Al Qabas daily. The decision comes within the framework of adjusting the expats’ residency in the country and aims to amend the demographics of expatriates.
The daily, quoting sources, said that the directors of the residence affairs departments in the six governorates were given instructions, which were passed to the heads of departments and employees that the transfer of the children’s residences to the sponsorship of their mothers residing in Kuwait is not permitted.
Three categories are excluded from the decision:
- Female expat teachers working in the Ministry of Education
- Professionals in the Medical and Nursing Authority of the Ministry of Health
- Female doctors working in the General Department of Criminal Evidence, where they are entitled to sponsor their children on their residency without the need for others.
Earlier, the transfer of visit visas to residency visas of children who entered the country on visit visas before the coronavirus pandemic was in accordance with Article 22 (joining a family) on their parents was previously permitted, but the decision has been changed.
In light of the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, Kuwait is seeking to address demographic imbalance, speaker of the National Assembly Marzouq Al Ghanim said in a meeting on 6 July that it was unusual for any country to have 70 per cent of its population as foreigners.
He indicated that there are almost 1.3 million illiterate people in Kuwait as per the statistics of the Public Authority of Civil Information hence addressing the demographic imbalance issue should not be limited to just reducing the number of expatriates but rather their areas of specialization should be taken into consideration.