Submission to the Universal Periodic Review of Kuwait

Introduction

This submission highlights Human Rights Watch’s concerns regarding the human rights situation in Kuwait. Although at its last Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Kuwait accepted 230 recommendations,[1] the Kuwaiti government continues to discriminate against women and migrant workers by imposing male guardianship over women and the abusive and exploitative kafala (visa sponsorship) system over migrant workers. The Kuwaiti government has announced important reforms, such as a law protecting against domestic violence, but it remains inadequate. Additionally, Kuwaiti authorities did not take any steps to protect the rights of members of the Bidun community, a community of stateless people who claim Kuwaiti nationality.

Women’s Rights

Despite supporting multiple recommendations on eliminating gender-based discrimination against women during Kuwait’s 2020 UPR,[2] Kuwaiti law continues to discriminate against women in marriage, divorce, custody of children, and nationality. Under Kuwait’s Personal Status Law, women do not have a unilateral right to divorce on an equal basis as men. Women can only apply to the courts for divorce on limited grounds. Kuwaiti women married to non-Kuwaiti men cannot pass their Kuwaiti nationality to their children and spouses, while it passes automatically to the children and spouses of Kuwait men.

The personal status law allows the court to deny the wife’s right to spousal maintenance (nafaqa) from her husband if she refuses to move into the marital home “without justification” or prevents her husband from living with her in her home.[3] A woman may lose her right to spousal maintenance from her husband if her travel abroad is deemed by a court to be “disobedient.”

Only a man can act as a child’s legal guardian, with the default being the father.

Women in Kuwait face restrictions to their movement in their own country and from travelling abroad without the permission of their male guardian. In Kuwait, a male guardian or other family members can report women to the police for being “absent” from the home, which can lead to their arrest and forcible return or detention.[4] Some state universities in Kuwait require women to show that they have the approval of their male guardian before they can go on field trips, stay at, or leave campus.[5]

In 2020, Kuwait issued a new law on Protection from Domestic Violence.[6] However, gaps in the law remain as it does not set out penalties for domestic violence as a crime on its own and does not include former partners, people who are engaged to be married, people in relationships outside marriage, or people in unofficial marriages.[7]

Recommendations:

• Fully implement of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.
• Amend the law to allow Kuwait women to pass their nationality to their children and spouses on an equal basis with Kuwait men.

Freedom of Expression

While the government of Kuwait supported a recommendation made by the United Kingdom to “protect freedom of expression for all, including online, by repealing legislation that does not comply with article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,”[8] provisions in the penal code and cybercrime laws criminalize speech that objects or insults religion, the emir, or rulers of other countries.[9] These provisions continue to be used to restrict freedom of expression. In May 2023, a Kuwaiti court convicted Salman al-Khalidi to five years in prison with hard labor for his activity on X, formerly Twitter.[10]

Recommendations:

• Repeal laws that violate the right to freedom of expression, including articles 6, 7, and 13 of the cybercrimes law.
• Release prisoners detained for exercising their right to peaceful expression immediately and unconditionally.

Bidun (Stateless People)

In its 3rd UPR cycle Kuwait supported many recommendations to enshrine non-discriminatory access to services like health care, education, and legal documentation to its Bidun population.[11] However, Kuwait does not recognize the right of the country’s long-time residents to Kuwaiti nationality until this day. Children born to Bidun parents remain stateless. Because of Kuwait’s refusal to confer Kuwaiti nationality to them, leaving them stateless, the Bidun are unable to freely travel within Kuwait and abroad and face restrictions in marriage procedures, accessing health care and education, and finding employment. In January 2023, Kuwaiti authorities denied entry to Mona Kareem, an academic from the Bidun community, into Kuwait to visit her family.[12]

The Kuwaiti government issues members of the Bidun community with temporary identity documents that often state that the holder possesses Iraqi, Saudi Arabian, Iranian, or other citizenship without explaining how this determination was made or a procedure to challenge the determination.[13]

Recommendations:

• Create a transparent process to determine the citizenship claims of the Bidun community or provide a clear path to nationality.

Migrant Workers

Kuwait supported multiple recommendations on improving protections for migrant workers and properly enforcing existing ones in its 2020 UPR.[14] However, the kafala (sponsorship) system that ties workers’ legal status to their employers hinders any efforts for redress and exposes migrant workers to serious abuses like wage theft and indebtedness from exorbitant illegal recruitment fees. These workers also face difficulties changing jobs without their employer’s consent while absconding is still criminalized even when workers are escaping abuse.

Outdoor migrant workers in Kuwait lack sufficient health and safety protections from extreme heat, a serious health hazard that can cause chronic health issues including death.[15] The average temperature in the Gulf during summer months can reach up to 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) climbing up to 55 degrees Celsius (131 degrees Fahrenheit) with humidity.[16] Kuwait’s only protection for migrant workers against extreme summertime heat is an ineffective midday work ban that extends from 11 am to 4 pm in the period between June 1 and August 31, instead of applying the recommended Wet Bulb Globe Temperature index as the standard for imposing work limitations during extreme heat.[17] Studies using Government of Kuwait’s data have shown how extremely hot temperatures increase the risk of occupational injury despite the midday work ban,[18] and  non-Kuwaiti working age males are disproportionately vulnerable to hot temperatures with a doubling or tripling risk of mortality.[19]

Migrant domestic workers remain excluded from the labor law, and protections under the 2015 domestic workers law are still weaker than those in Kuwait’s labor law and are poorly enforced.[20]

These workers face additional forms of abuse enabled by the exploitative kafala system such as forcible confinement to the employer’s home and verbal, physical, and sexual abuse.

Recommendations:

• Abolish the kafala system.
• Adopt risk-based heat protection measures such as the Wet Bulb Globe Temperature index with appropriate thresholds based on work intensity to impose evidence-based work-rest schedules.
• Strengthen the Domestic Workers Law as per international standards and ratify the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Convention on Decent Work for Domestic Workers (No. 189).

Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity

Kuwait’s penal code criminalizes adultery with up to five years in prison and a fine. The law also prohibits consensual sexual relations between men and punishes them by up to seven years if they are over the age of 21 and up to ten years if they are under 21.

In February 2022, the Constitutional Court ruled that article 198 of the penal code that prohibits “imitating the opposite sex” is unconstitutional.[21] However, it was reported in December 2022 that authorities deported around 3,000 gay and transgender people.[22]

Recommendations:

• The Kuwaiti National Assembly should repeal the amendment to article 198 of the penal code.
• Kuwaiti authorities should immediately release all individuals detained under article 198 of the penal code and formally overturn any convictions.

Criminal Justice System

Although Kuwait supported a recommendation by Malta in its previous UPR to “take measures to prevent arbitrary detention and abuse of state authority, including by ensuring the effective guarantee of due process and the avoidance of systematic and sustained pretrial detention,”[23] Kuwaiti authorities did not take steps to acknowledge and investigate the due process violations in the trial of Maria (Marsha) Lazareva,[24] a businesswoman and mother of a nine year-old boy detained in 2017, and her detention that has been deemed arbitrary according to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.[25]

Kuwait continues to impose the death penalty despite a brief pause between 2017-2022, with authorities executing five people convicted of non-violent drug offenses and murder.[26]

Recommendations:

• Immediately and unconditionally release all those arbitrarily arrested, including Maria Lazareva.
• Place a moratorium on the death penalty with the aim to its abolition.
• Ratify the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty.