The United States Department of State’s report
Women Rape and domestic violence:
Rape carries a maximum penalty of death, which the courts occasionally imposed for the crime; spousal rape is not a crime.
Authorities did not effectively enforce laws against rape. Violence against women continued to be a problem. There were reports alleging that some police stations did not take seriously reports by both citizens and noncitizens of rape and domestic violence.
Media reported two to three dozen rape cases, but government statistics were unavailable. Incidents of rape were likely underreported to authorities due to intense social stigma associated with sexual violence crimes. Many victims were noncitizen domestic workers. When reported, police typically arrested and investigated alleged rapists and, in a limited number of cases, prosecuted the accused. In September 2015 the Court of Cassation revoked a life sentence on a citizen for raping a Filipina woman and instead sentenced him to death.
The government does not publish statistics on violence against women. A local women’s advocacy NGO estimated 20,000 women were victims of some form of domestic violence or abuse during the year. The law does not specifically prohibit domestic violence, but in some instances courts try such cases as assault. A victim of domestic violence may file a complaint with police requesting formal charges be brought against the alleged abuser. Victims, however, did not report most domestic abuse cases, especially outside the capital. There were no known shelters specifically for victims of domestic violence. In July 2015 the government established two hotlines for reporting domestic violence. The hotlines are operational only during the working hours and are operated by staff with limited training. Calls and cases are referred to professional social workers. In some cases hospitals denied treatment for victims of sexual assault who had not reported the case to the police first. In December 2015 a noncitizen woman who was raped sought medical care at a hospital but was informed that a police officer would have to interview her first.
A woman may petition for divorce based on injury from spousal abuse, but the law does not provide a clear legal standard regarding what constitutes injury. Additionally, a woman must provide at least two male witnesses (or a male witness and two female witnesses) to attest to such injury.
Other harmful traditional practices: Officials did not report any honor killings during the year. The penal code penalizes some honor crimes as misdemeanors. The law states that a man who sees his wife, daughter, mother, or sister in the “act of adultery” and immediately kills her or the man with whom she is committing adultery faces a maximum punishment of three years’ imprisonment and a fine of 225 dinars ($743).
Sexual harassment: Human rights groups characterized sexual harassment in the workplace as a pervasive and unreported problem. No specific law addresses sexual harassment, but the law criminalizes “encroachment on honor,” which encompasses everything from touching a woman against her will to rape, and police strictly enforced this law. The government deployed female police officers specifically to combat sexual harassment in shopping malls and other public spaces. Perpetrators of sexual harassment and assault faced fines and imprisonment.
Reproductive rights: There were no reports of government interference in the right of couples and individuals to decide freely the number, spacing, and timing of children; to manage their reproductive health; and to have access to the information and means to do so free from discrimination, coercion, and violence. The information and means to make decisions, as well as skilled attendance during prenatal care, essential obstetric care, childbirth, and postpartum care were freely available. While the government did not provide any formal family planning programs, contraceptives were available without prescription to citizens and noncitizens: 44 percent of women ages 15-49 used a modern type of contraceptives, and 16 percent of women had an unmet need for family planning, according to UN Population Fund 2015 estimates. Discrimination: Women do not enjoy the same legal status and rights as men, but citizen women enjoyed many political rights, including the right to vote and to serve in parliament and the cabinet (see section 3, Elections and Political Participation). Sharia (Islamic law) courts have jurisdiction over personal status and family law cases for Sunni and Shia Muslims. Sharia, as implemented in the country, discriminates against women in judicial proceedings, freedom of movement, marriage, child custody, and inheritance. There were no known cases of official or private-sector discrimination in, credit, owning and/or managing a business, and housing. Discrimination in employment and occupation occurred with respect to both citizen and noncitizen women. Secular courts allow any person to testify and consider male and female testimony equally, but in sharia courts, which govern personal status matters such as marriage, divorce, child custody and inheritance issues, the testimony of one man equals that of two women.
The 1984 Kuwaiti Family Law Code prohibits marriage between Muslim women and non-Muslim men. The law does not require a non-Muslim woman to convert to Islam to marry a Muslim man, but many non-Muslim women faced strong economic and societal pressure to convert. In the event of a divorce, the law grants the father or his family sole custody of children of non-Muslim women who do not convert. A non-Muslim woman who does not convert to the religion of her husband is also ineligible for naturalization as a citizen and cannot inherit her husband’s property unless specified as a beneficiary in his will.
Inheritance is also governed by sharia, which varies according to the specific school of Islamic jurisprudence. In the absence of a direct male heir, a Shia woman may inherit all property, while a Sunni woman inherits only a portion, with the balance divided among brothers, uncles, and male cousins of the deceased.
Female citizens are unable to pass citizenship to their noncitizen husbands or their children; however, exceptions were made for some children of widowed or divorced female citizens (see section 2.d., Stateless Persons). In August the government awarded citizenship to 180 children of Kuwaiti widows and divorcees. Male citizens married to female noncitizens do not face such discrimination. In May parliament approved awarding loans up to 70,000 dinars ($231,000) for single Kuwaiti women. The law grants a “housewife allowance” to nonworking women age 55 and older.
Women experienced discrimination in the workplace. According to government statistics, women comprised only 14 percent of legislators, senior officials, and managers. In October the country’s highest court ordered an end to affirmative action for male applicants to medical schools on grounds it is unconstitutional. Prior to this court ruling, female applicants were required to demonstrate a higher minimum grade point average than male applicants. The law requires segregation by gender of classes at all universities and secondary schools, although it was not always enforced.
A limited number of women attained leadership positions in the private sector as heads of corporations, but only one woman served as a minister in the cabinet. In 2014 the first 22 female employees of the Public Prosecutor’s Office completed their training and became public prosecutors, a prerequisite for appointment as a judge. In August the Supreme Judicial Council ruled that after serving as prosecutors for three years women would be eligible to serve as judges.
Children Birth registration:
Citizenship derives entirely from the father; children born to citizen mothers and noncitizen fathers do not inherit Kuwaiti citizenship unless the mother is divorced or widowed from the noncitizen father and may then facilitate the child’s application for citizenship. The government designates with the disclosure of the practice. A children’s rights law, passed in March 2015 establishing legal protections for abused children, was implemented in January. In November the government opened a hotline for reporting instances of child abuse.
Early and Forced Marriage:
The legal marriage age is 17 for males and 15 for females, but girls continued to marry at a younger age in some tribal groups. The government reported there were 3,808 married females between the ages of 15-19.
Sexual exploitation of children:
there are no laws specific to child pornography, because all pornography is illegal. There is no statutory rape law or minimum age for consensual sexual relations, although premarital sexual relations are illegal.
There were no known Jewish citizens and an estimated few dozen Jewish foreign resident workers. Anti-Semitic rhetoric often originated from self-proclaimed Islamists or conservative opinion writers. These columnists often conflated Israeli government actions or views with those of Jews more broadly. Reflecting the government’s nonrecognition of Israel, there are longstanding official instructions to teachers to expunge from English-language textbooks any references to Israel or the Holocaust. The law prohibits companies from conducting business with Israeli citizens, including transporting them on their national airlines.
Persons with disabilities
The law prohibits discrimination against persons with permanent physical, sensory, intellectual, and mental disabilities, in employment, education, air travel and other transportation, access to health care, or the provision of other government services. It imposes penalties on employers who refrain without reasonable cause from hiring persons with disabilities. The law also mandates access to buildings for persons with disabilities. The government generally enforced these provisions. Noncitizens with disabilities neither had access to government-operated facilities nor received stipends paid to citizens with disabilities that covered transportation, housing, job training, and social welfare costs. The government still has not fully implemented social and workplace aides for people with physical, and in particular, vision disabilities.
There is a disability law, and a parliamentary Committee for Disabled Affairs. Under that law the monthly allowance given to the mother of a disabled child or the wife of a person with disabilities is 600 dinars ($1,980), and families of citizens with disabilities are eligible to receive grants worth up to 20,000 dinars ($66,000). During the year the government reserved a small number of admissions to Kuwait University for citizens with disabilities, and there was regular media coverage of students with disabilities attending university classes. Nonetheless, authorities did not provide noncitizens with disabilities the same educational opportunities, and noncitizen students with disabilities experienced a lack of accessible materials and lack of reasonable their own automobiles or taxi fares.
Consensual same-sex sexual conduct between men and cross-dressing are illegal. The law punishes consensual same-sex sexual activity between men older than 21 with imprisonment of up to seven years; those engaging in consensual same-sex sexual activity with men younger than 21 may be imprisoned for as long as 10 years. No laws criminalize sexual behavior between women. The law imposes a fine of 1,059 dinars ($3,495) and imprisonment for one to three years for persons imitating the appearance of the opposite sex in public. Transgender persons reported harassment, detainment, and abuse by security forces. In August police arrested three crossdressers in a mall. The police ordered the individuals to have their heads shaved and opened an investigation.
Societal discrimination and harassment based on sexual orientation and gender identity occurred; to a lesser extent, officials also practiced such discrimination, usually upon discovering that a person stopped for a traffic violation did not appear to be the gender indicated on the identification card. Transgender men and women often faced rejection by their families and, in some cases, disputes over inheritances.
No registered NGOs focused on LGBTI matters, although unregistered ones existed. Due to social convention and potential repression, LGBTI organizations neither operated openly nor held gay pride marches or gay rights advocacy events.
HIV and AIDS social stigma
Local human rights NGOs reported no accounts of societal violence or discrimination against persons with HIV/AIDS, but persons with HIV/AIDS did not generally disclose their status due to social stigma associated with the disease. The Ministry of Health estimated there were 209 citizens with HIV. Foreign citizens found to be HIV-positive faced immediate deportation.
Other societal violence or discrimination:
Unmarried men continued to face housing discrimination based solely on marital status. The law prohibits single men from obtaining accommodation in many urban residential areas. Single noncitizens faced eviction due to a decision by the municipality to enforce this prohibition and remove them from residences allocated for citizens’ families, citing the presence of single men as the reason for increasing crime, a burden on services, and worsening traffic. Although no law prohibits it, single and unaccompanied citizen and noncitizen female residents traditionally are not allowed to check into hotels
Section 7: Worker rights:
a. Freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining The law protects the right of workers to form and join trade unions, bargain collectively, Manpower, there were 2.52 million workers in the country. Only 19 percent of the total workforce were citizens. Most citizens (76 percent) worked in the public sector, in part because the government provided lucrative bonuses to citizens, including retirement funding.
The law prohibits antiunion discrimination and employer interference with union functions. It provides for reinstatement of workers fired for union activity. Nevertheless, the law empowers the courts to dissolve any union for violating labor laws or for threatening “public order and morals,” although a union can appeal such a court decision. The Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor can request the Court of First Instance to dissolve a union. Additionally, His Highness the Amir may dissolve a union by decree.
Foreign workers, who constituted more than 80 percent of the workforce, may join unions only as nonvoting members after five years of work in the particular sector the union represents, provided they obtain a certificate of good conduct and moral standing from the government. They cannot run for seats or vote in board elections. Both the International Labor Organization and the International Trade Union Confederation criticized the citizenship requirement for discouraging unions in sectors that employ few citizens, including much of private-sector employment, such as construction.
The government enforced applicable laws, with some exceptions, and procedures were generally not subject to lengthy delay or appeals. The government treated worker actions by citizens and noncitizens differently. While citizens and public sector union leaders and workers faced no government repercussions for their roles in union or strike activities, companies directly threatened noncitizen workers calling for strikes with termination and deportation.
In April, 20,000 Kuwaiti workers in the oil sector went on strike due to proposed future benefit reductions. The strike lasted three days, ending when the government stated it would refuse to negotiate as long as the strike continued. In May, 1,200 foreign oil workers also went on strike due to nonpayment of wages. The government intervened and resolved the strike when it assured the workers they would be paid.
b. Prohibition of forced or compulsory labor
The law prohibits and criminally sanctions forced or compulsory labor “except in cases specified by law for national emergency and with just remuneration.” In June the National Assembly passed amendments to the privatesector labor law providing for increased worker rights to include subjecting employers to fines for failure to pay worker’s wages and for recruiting workers from abroad but failing to provide employment.
Although the law prohibits withholding of workers’ passports, the practice remained common among sponsors and employers of foreign workers, and the government demonstrated no consistent efforts to enforce this prohibition. Employers confined some domestic and agricultural workers to their workspaces by retaining their passport and, in the case of some domestic workers, locked in their work locations. Workers who fled abusive employers had difficulty retrieving their passports and authorities deported them in almost all cases. The government usually limited punishment to assessing fines, shutting employment firms, issuing orders for employers to return withheld passports, or requiring employers to pay back wages. As of September the government closed six recruitment agencies and stated it had received and investigated 3,100 complaints from workers, more than half of complaints were resolved amicably in favor of the worker. The government also received 9,087 salary-related labor complaints, of which 6,123 were referred to the labor courts for adjudication while 463 cases were resolved through arbitration.
Some incidents of forced labor and conditions indicative of forced labor occurred, especially among foreign domestic and agricultural workers. Such practices were usually a result of employer abuse of the sponsorship system (kafala) for noncitizen workers. Employers frequently illegally withheld salaries from domestic workers and minimum-wage laborers.
According to various reports, North Korean laborers, estimated to number between 2,000 and 4,000, worked in forced labor conditions, averaging 15-hour days with no freedom of movement and living in squalid conditions. Former North Korean laborers and officials indicated that employers paid worker salaries to a North Korean government-owned company instead of directly to the individual workers. Kuwait served as the only point of aerial disembarkation for all North Korean laborers in Gulf Cooperation Council countries. In October the government halted all North Korean flights to Kuwait in response to repeated requests from concerned governments, and in November the government ceased issuing work visas for North Korean workers.
Domestic servitude was the most common type of forced labor, principally involving foreign domestic workers employed under the sponsorship system, but reports of forced labor in the construction and sanitation sectors also existed. Forced labor conditions for migrant workers included nonpayment of wages, long working hours, deprivation of food, threats, physical and sexual abuse, and restrictions on movement, such as withholding passports or confinement to the workplace.
NGO estimates that 20,000 women were victims of domestic violence Incidents of forced labor and conditions indicative of forced labor occurred