A man and his children sit on a bench next to the Red Sea in Jizan October 6, 2010.

Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Labor has clarified that the children of Saudi women from non-Saudi husbands will be considered as citizens under the Nitaqat Saudization program whether their mothers are dead or alive.

“According to a decision taken by the Council of Ministers in 2012 (1433H), the children of Saudi women married to foreign men are entitled to have certain rights. These rights include allowing them to work in private sector firms without transferring their sponsorship, considering them as Saudi citizens in education and medical care, and counting them Saudi citizens with regard to Nitaqat program in the private sector,” the ministry said in a statement carried by the Saudi Press Agency.

The ministry denied press reports that these children will not be considered as citizens in the Nitaqat program after the death of their Saudi mothers. “As long the son of a Saudi woman from a non-Saudi husband lives in the Kingdom, he will be counted as a Saudi citizen in Nitaqat program whether his mother is dead or alive. The ministry follows this directive strictly ever since it has been adopted by the Council of Ministers,” the ministry said.

The clarification comes in the wake of a recent statement from Deputy Minister Ahmed Al-Humaidan, saying that children of Saudi women from non-Saudi husbands will not be considered as citizens in the Nitaqat program after the death of their mothers.

When the mother dies, her offspring from a non-Saudi father will automatically lose the privilege of being Saudi citizens in the Nitaqat program, he said.

There are 700,000 Saudi women who are married to non-Saudis, representing around 10 percent of the overall population, according to a Ministry of Justice report issued in 2012.

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