Human Rights Watch — submission to Kuwait's fourth Universal Periodic Review (October 2024) and oral statement on its outcome (September 2025)

HRW welcomes Kuwait's acceptance of 206 recommendations, "including to repeal the 'kafala' (sponsorship) system and replace it with residence permits for domestic workers". It regrets the rejection of recommendations on statelessness, the death penalty, discrimination against women (including equal transmission of nationality), freedom of expression, migrant workers, reproductive rights and LGBT rights. It states that Kuwait dismissed recommendations on the "massive revocation" of citizenship: "Amendments to the Nationality Law stripped more than 30,000 people, mainly women, of their citizenship", leaving them without documents, travel, services or proper medical care. Kuwait also dismissed all recommendations on the Bidun, "officially categorized as 'illegal residents'".

USE IN A REPORT: HRW's summary of the UPR is useful for showing which recommendations Kuwait accepted and rejected; for the recommendations themselves, cite the Working Group's report and Kuwait's addendum.

HRW's September 2025 figure of "more than 30,000" people stripped of citizenship is lower than the UN Special Rapporteur's 40,000–60,000 as of August 2025 and Freedom House's "more than 50,000" by late 2025; the figures come from different sources and dates, and each should be cited with its own. The submission's footnote on the deportation of about 3,000 gay and transgender people cites a Times Kuwait report under the name "Kuwait Times"; the two are different publications. Kuwait's acceptance of the recommendation to replace kafala for domestic workers should be read with the exit-permit rule introduced in July 2025 (HRW, June 2025, on the Dossier).

WOMEN. No unilateral right to divorce; loss of maintenance for refusing the marital home "without justification" or for travel deemed "disobedient"; only a man can be a child's guardian; women can be reported to police as "absent" and forcibly returned; some state universities require a guardian's approval for trips. The 2020 Domestic Violence Law does not make domestic violence a distinct crime and excludes former partners, fiancés and unregistered relationships. Kuwaiti women cannot pass nationality to children or spouses.

EXPRESSION. Despite accepting a UK recommendation in 2020 to repeal laws inconsistent with ICCPR Art. 19, provisions criminalising insult to religion, the Amir or foreign rulers remain; Salman al-Khalidi was sentenced in May 2023 to five years with hard labour for posts on X. HRW asks for repeal of Arts. 6, 7 and 13 of the cybercrime law.

BIDUN. Children of Bidun parents remain stateless; temporary identity documents often state an Iraqi, Saudi, Iranian or other nationality without explanation or means of challenge; academic Mona Kareem was denied entry in January 2023.

MIGRANTS. Kafala; criminalised "absconding"; the midday outdoor work ban (11 am–4 pm, 1 June–31 August) instead of a Wet Bulb Globe Temperature standard, with studies showing raised injury and mortality risk; domestic workers outside the labour law.

OTHER. Adultery and consensual sex between men are criminalised; the Constitutional Court struck down Article 198 in February 2022, but about 3,000 gay and transgender people were reported deported in 2022; the detention of Maria (Marsha) Lazareva, found arbitrary by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (A/HRC/WGAD/2020/60); five executions after the 2017–2022 pause.