Violence, extortion against women continue unabated in spite of law

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‘Need to act, implement legislation on rights’

KUWAIT CITY, March 8: March 8th is the day when the world pays attention to the achievements and initiatives of women, empower them, protects their rights and all forms of violence, discrimination and extortion, and proposing laws to protect their basic rights of all kinds, reports Al-Qabas daily. Kuwaiti women, along with their counterparts around the world, celebrate this day as official local statistics indicate an increase in the frequency of crimes committed against women in the country in the recent period, in which the lives of many victims were claimed, while the security services recorded, in the past year, about 1,500 cases of violence and extorting against female victims.

Activists, lawyers and social workers, spoke at length on the extent that the country’s women have achieved in order to protect their social, economic and political rights and preserve their physical and moral integrity.

They said that it is also difficult to deny Kuwait’s progress in the field of protecting women, with the issuance of the Law on Protection from Domestic Violence, but they called the law “lame, walking on one foot, as long as its executive regulations have not yet been issued.” They demanded the need to speed up the issuance of the relevant executive regulations, to ensure the integration of the application of the aforementioned law and stressed on the importance of activating the role of the Center for Shelter for Abused Women. Counselor and lawyer, Azraa Al-Rifai, praised the issuance of the Domestic Violence Law, and said that the situation of battered women after its issuance “has become more positive, from a legal point of view, but our ambition is still greater than that,” calling for “activating the role of judicial enforcement in domestic violence cases.”

The social activist Asrar Hayat, enumerated different forms of violence against women in society, and talked about “another form” of violence practiced against her, but not much light is shed on it, which is “electronic violence.” Hayat said that this type of violence, which is termed as “cyberbullying,” has increased in frequency with the steady increase in the use of social media, indicating that its risks may lead its victims to depression, isolation, and even suicide.

Violation
Head of the Supreme Council for Community Rights at the Lawyers Association, Attorney Mona Al-Arbash said the “domestic violence” law is good but lamented the lack of executive regulation and called for ways to educate society about the dangers of domestic violence, stressing the importance of accelerating the issuance of the executive regulations of the Domestic Violence Law.

Six urgent demands to prevent violation against women include expediting the issuance of the executive regulations of the Domestic Violence Law; husbands and brothers not use the law as a pretext to plunder women; increasing shelters for battered women and opening new ones for men; Drafting a law that limits ‘cyberbullying’ to which women are exposed; activating the role of the judicial police in cases of domestic violence and training female workers in the field of abused women to deal with their cases

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