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https://www.france24.com/en/live-ne...allows-women-in-combat-roles-but-without-guns
Kuwait City (AFP) – Kuwaiti women are angry after the military, having allowed female soldiers in combat roles, decided they need the permission of a male guardian and banned them from carrying weapons.
Activists have decried the policy as “one step forward, two steps back” after the defence ministry also decided that women in the armed forces, unlike civilians, must wear head coverings.
The moves have sparked an online backlash in Kuwait, usually regarded as one of the most open societies in the Gulf.
“I don’t know why there are these restrictions to join the army,” Ghadeer al-Khashti, a sports teacher and member of Kuwait Football Association’s women committee, told AFP.
“We have all kinds of women working in all fields, including the police force.”…
“I don’t understand on what basis they see women as weak.”
The ministry decided in October to allow women in combat roles but then imposed the restrictions after the defence minister was questioned by conservative lawmaker Hamdan al-Azmi.
Azmi, emboldened by an Islamic religious edict, or fatwa, had argued that having women in combat roles “does not fit with a woman’s nature”.
‘Women martyrs’
Lulwa Saleh al-Mulla, head of the Kuwaiti Women’s Cultural and Social Society, said the ministry’s restrictions are discriminatory and unconstitutional and vowed legal action by the organisation.
“We have women martyrs who defended their country of their own volition,” she told AFP. “No one ordered them to do that but the love for their country.
“We are a Muslim country, that is true, but we demand the laws not be subject to fatwas. Personal freedom is guaranteed in the constitution, on which the country’s laws are based.”…
Kuwait City (AFP) – Kuwaiti women are angry after the military, having allowed female soldiers in combat roles, decided they need the permission of a male guardian and banned them from carrying weapons.
Activists have decried the policy as “one step forward, two steps back” after the defence ministry also decided that women in the armed forces, unlike civilians, must wear head coverings.
The moves have sparked an online backlash in Kuwait, usually regarded as one of the most open societies in the Gulf.
“I don’t know why there are these restrictions to join the army,” Ghadeer al-Khashti, a sports teacher and member of Kuwait Football Association’s women committee, told AFP.
“We have all kinds of women working in all fields, including the police force.”…
“I don’t understand on what basis they see women as weak.”
The ministry decided in October to allow women in combat roles but then imposed the restrictions after the defence minister was questioned by conservative lawmaker Hamdan al-Azmi.
Azmi, emboldened by an Islamic religious edict, or fatwa, had argued that having women in combat roles “does not fit with a woman’s nature”.
‘Women martyrs’
Lulwa Saleh al-Mulla, head of the Kuwaiti Women’s Cultural and Social Society, said the ministry’s restrictions are discriminatory and unconstitutional and vowed legal action by the organisation.
“We have women martyrs who defended their country of their own volition,” she told AFP. “No one ordered them to do that but the love for their country.
“We are a Muslim country, that is true, but we demand the laws not be subject to fatwas. Personal freedom is guaranteed in the constitution, on which the country’s laws are based.”…
