Honor over justice: How Kuwait’s Penal Code is failing to protect the human rights of women & girls

This document, produced in partnership with Abolish Article 153, is an analysis of the domestic provisions with regard to international human rights standards that Kuwait should be adhering to and provides recommendations for amendments to strengthen its legislative provisions to ensure greater protection to survivors of sexual violence.

Although Kuwait ratified the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in 1994, the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1991, and other international human rights instruments, its legal provisions remain inadequate in the prevention of violence against women and girls and protection of survivors of sexual violence.

Even though equality under the law is ensured under Article 29 of the Constitution of Kuwait, which states that “people are peers in human dignity and have, in the eyes of the Law, equal public rights and obligations”, provisions are in place in the Penal Code which provides impunity for perpetrators of gender-based violence.