Forgotten world (22): Kuwait
In 1990, Saddam Hussain’s Iraq invaded the small, next-door country of Kuwait and precipated the first Gulf War. The US-led coaliition was clearly right to liberate Kuwait, but the country was far from the democratic ideal to which the Western powers aspired. The substantial immigrant community was exploited, there was no free trade union movement, and women were very much second-class citizens (although they fought in the domestic resistance).
However, Kuwait was the first Arab country in the Gulf to have an elected parliament and women at least have made some progress since the coalition invasion. A third of the workforce is female and women now hold some promiment positions in business, medicine, the media, the universities and the civil servcie. Unlike their sisters in Saudi Arabia, they are allowed to drive and dress codes are relatively flexible.
Although the independence constitution of 1961 formally granted them equality with men, it was only in 2005 that women finally won the right to vote. In the elections of late June 2006, there were 28 women among the 253 candidates for 50-seat National Assembly. None was elected.
The country consists of 25 constituencies making it easy to buy votes, but the efforts of the Emir Sheikh Sabah to reduce the number to five and make it harder to purchase votes failed. One has to be 30 even to vote, so young reformers are disenfranchised. Indeed, in a country of almost 3 million, only 340,000 are eligible to vote in elections. Members of the ruling family hold most of the key cabinet posts.