UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls — report on her visit to Kuwait (A/HRC/62/49/Add.1, 11 June 2026)

THE VISIT. At the Government's invitation, 2–9 September 2025; meetings with the Interior, Justice, Social Affairs, Health, Education and Information ministries, the Public Prosecutor, the Central Agency for Remedying Illegal Residents' Status and others; visits to a shelter for women migrant workers, the women's police academy, the deportation centre and women's prison at Sulaibiya and a police station. The report excludes the consequences of the war that began in February 2026 (para. 4).

NATIONALITY (paras. 10–14). The 1959 law gives nationality automatically to a Kuwaiti father's children but to a Kuwaiti mother's only by discretionary decree after 21, on strict conditions. Decree-Law No. 116 of 2024 removed a Kuwaiti man's ability to pass nationality to a foreign wife, contrary to the principle of non-regression. Since March 2025 the Government has "increasingly resorted to the withdrawal of Kuwaiti nationality from women", presented as correcting "legal errors" (fraud, dual nationality) and also on the "higher interest of the State". "As of August 2025, between 40,000 and 60,000 individuals have been affected", women disproportionately, especially those naturalised by marriage under the repealed Article 8. She received more than 100 letters from those affected and is concerned that the law was applied retroactively and extended to families. She notes mitigation measures (special residence status, limited civil rights, a grievance committee under Decision No. 207 of 2025, an online appeal portal, a three-month period to show efforts to recover a former nationality, a temporary passport), "applied sporadically", and is "alarmed" at the further retroactive withdrawal, by Decree No. 22 of 2026, of the nationality of 2,176 adult children who had acquired it lawfully through their Kuwaiti mothers.

VIOLENCE (paras. 32–36). The 2025 repeal of Penal Code Article 153 is welcomed. Rape (Art. 186) requires force, threats or deception, which does not meet international standards. The cybercrime law (No. 63 of 2015) covers some online abuse.

MIGRANT WOMEN (paras. 24–25, 38–39). Domestic workers are outside the labour law; Law No. 68/2015 gives employer-provided protections. The kafala system leaves workers vulnerable, and since July 2025 migrants need employer permission to leave the country. Of 1,623 women and 58 children screened at shelters, only two potential trafficking victims had been identified as of December 2023.

BIDOON WOMEN (paras. 76–78). Classified as persons whose nationality could not be determined; the 2000 naturalisation law's annual quota of 2,000 was never met; children face barriers to birth registration and free education.

USE IN A REPORT: a UN Human Rights Council document and the most authoritative published figure for the scale of the withdrawals as of August 2025. Cite the symbol and paragraph.

Two points. Paragraph 5 describes Kuwait as combining hereditary rule "with an elected National Assembly that plays an important role in legislative oversight". The Assembly has been suspended since May 2024 (see the Freedom House and Amnesty entries on the Dossier), and a report should not cite that sentence as a description of the position in 2025–2026. Secondly, figures of "over 70,000" attributed to the Special Rapporteur in NGO publications do not appear in this report, whose figure is 40,000–60,000 as of August 2025; the later figure, if used, should be cited to whoever published it.