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Society
The flat, gravelly desert country Kuwait - bordered by the turquoise waters of the Gulf and its much bigger neighbors Saudi Arabia and Iraq - is strategically important. In 1990, Kuwait shot to world attention when Saddam Hussein overran it. And, more recently, in 2003, it served as a launch-pad for the US-led invasion of Iraq. As a US ally, Kuwait has come under pressure for democratic reform and in 2005 passed legislation allowing women the right to vote. After years of campaigning for political rights, women will go to the polls for the first time in the 2007 parliamentary elections. Also last year, Kuwait's legislative body, the National Assembly, appointed Massouma al-Mubarak as its first woman member of parliament and made her planning minister and minister of state for administrative development affairs. "It's a great day for Kuwaiti women who have struggled and persevered...to gain their full political rights," said Mubarak, who has long championed female empowerment, after being sworn in. Mubarak said
that granting women the vote was long overdue. "This is the right thing
to do," she was quoted as saying in the Kuwaiti press. "It is no favor
from anyone." Following the new Kuwaiti legislation, women can vote in
all Middle Eastern nations where elections are held, with the exception
of Saudi Arabia. During a recent visit to Kuwait, some women told me that they were concerned about the impact of 9/11 in their country. It has, they believe, made some women reactionary, helped confirm men's power and made dress codes more restrained. "You see more women wearing hijab (veil) here than, say, 10 years ago," said a woman, who incidentally was not wearing hijab. There were also others who were skeptical about whether it was worth partaking in Kuwaiti politics because of alleged corruption. But the lasting impression was of the high-profile women, with or without hijab, who were eager to tackle the challenge of improving the political system from within. Among the highly conservative Gulf Arab states, Kuwait was the first to have an elected parliament: the National Assembly dates back to its post-independence constitution promulgated in 1962. Its women were also quick to campaign for equality, even though they have been slow to win the right to vote. "If you read the history of women in Kuwait, (campaigning for women's suffrage) started much earlier than in other Gulf and Arab countries. It is illogical that women in Kuwait got political rights just a few months ago," says Fatima Ayyad, Professor of Clinical Psychology at Kuwait University and a Board Member of the Kuwaiti NGO Women's Cultural Social Society. Ayyad believes there was "no one reason" why Kuwait had fallen behind in its pursuit of women's rights, but the chief explanation was "fanatical groups". "They use Islam as a reason to prove their point of view. This is abusing, not using, Islam. There is nothing in Islam that is opposed to women's rights," she says. However, these groups managed to persuade a large proportion of the population, including women. "They were able to convince women that they were having a good life. They did not need any more." Part of the problem might have been a complacency that grew up because Kuwaiti women had already achieved so much. Ayyad and Mubarak, who was also an academic with Kuwait University until her appointment as minister, are some of the country's many intellectual women. The State opened its first school for girls in 1938 and more than half of Kuwait University alumnae are women, though some commentators have said this could be partly because families are more likely to send sons abroad for education. Women in Kuwait have reached senior positions in the all-important oil industry and the diplomatic corps, as well as in education. While some of the momentum for change was generated by the international scrutiny after Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, Ayyad believes that is only half the story. "It wasn't just pressure from the US, it was pressure from NGOs inside and outside Kuwait...Questions were raised about why women didn't have political rights. It was like a stigma. It did not go with democracy." Kuwait first attempted to introduce women's suffrage in 1999, but despite the support of the al Sabah ruling family, a decree giving women full political rights was narrowly defeated in the National Assembly. In 2005, however, Ayyad believes the government was more serious and the "fanatical groups" could no longer defend their point of view. Some of them tried, however. When the new law on suffrage was passed in 2005 and Mubarak was sworn in, conservative tribal representatives and Islamist Members of Parliament shouted protests. The bill was
only passed after fundamentalists inserted an article requiring any
female politician or voter to abide by Islamic law, leaving it unclear
what terms will be imposed. Critics have said making such a demand of
women when they do not make it of men flouts the constitution that
decrees complete gender equality. It could take more than one election before there is real progress. "I'm not sure women will win, but they will be more experienced the next time," she says. February 26, 2006 By arrangement with Women's Feature Service
The Week of February 26, 2006
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