Ruling Decried : Kuwait Clergy, Women Clash on Vote Rights

Just as Kuwait’s feminist leaders were celebrating the U.N. Decade for Women in Nairobi last July, the government dropped a political bombshell that is still producing anguished cries among women activists here.

A division of the Ministry of Religious Affairs issued a decree holding that Islam does not permit women to vote or seek election to Parliament.

“The nature of the election process befits men, who are endowed with ability and expertise,” the Committee for Koranic Interpretations and Legislation ruled. “There is no justification for women to demand the vote. Islam does not permit women to forfeit their basic commitments (of bearing and raising children).”

Women have never had the franchise in this small, Persian Gulf kingdom but they have achieved a degree of freedom in work and education that is rare in the region.

Veil Not Required in Kuwait

Unlike their sisters in neighboring Saudi Arabia, Kuwaiti women no longer have to wear the veil. They may drive cars and work alongside men in offices and factories. The Kuwait Oil Co. even has women engineers who work in Kuwait’s oil fields, formerly an all-male preserve.

So, not surprisingly, Kuwaiti women have raised an outcry about the ruling--the Fatwa, it is called.

“The government doesn’t want women who are educated to stay at home,” said Dalal al Ghanim, a woman who is marketing manager for the Commercial Bank of Kuwait. “We say, ‘OK, if you want us to work with you side by side, you must give us equality.’ ”

Particularly galling to many women is the fact that the Islamic authorities could find no justification for their decision in the Koran, which is the Holy Book of Islam, or in the Hadith, an auxiliary book of Muslim traditions that is often used as an arbiter of acceptable behavior.

‘Not Infallible Prophets’

“The Prophet Mohammed talked about men and women; he never mentioned men only,” said Dalal al Zaben, chairman of the Red Crescent Society, Kuwait’s equivalent of the Red Cross, which has also become an active women’s group. “It’s important to remember that the people who issued this decision are men and merely human beings, not infallible prophets.”

A number of women said they could not accept the idea of a political question such as suffrage being submitted for judgment on its religious merits. To do so, they argued, would mean that the government could avoid controversy on any issue.

“I refuse to accept the whole idea of going to the ministry for a ruling; it’s just not the correct route,” said Fatimah al Hussein, an outspoken critic of the government’s decision. “Islamic history is not relevant at all. If we go back to 6th-Century behavior, they will have to stop the traffic lights on my street.”

The Fatwa angered a number of Kuwaiti women who had campaigned in February for the election of candidates who would favor giving the vote to women. Several of the candidates supported by women were subsequently elected.

“We’re feeling pretty disappointed considering how hard we worked to influence others to vote for candidates who would be sympathetic,” said Masoumah al Mubarak, a political science instructor at Kuwait University.

In what may have been a preemptive strike to avoid having to make a decision on the issue, conservative members of Parliament submitted the question of women voting to the Fatwa committee rather than taking it to a vote in Parliament.

The Ministry of Religious Affairs’ decision still must be approved by Parliament, but it seems unlikely that a majority would take a position that has already been declared to be un-Islamic.

There are an estimated 1.4 million people in Kuwait, but only 500,000 are regarded as Kuwaitis. Under the country’s complex election rules, only 50,000--all men, of course--are eligible to vote.

Despite the condemnation of the ruling, some diplomatic observers believe that the decision probably reflects the feelings of most Kuwaiti women, who are believed to be even more conservative than men.

Divorce Rate Soars

One reason may be the country’s soaring divorce rate. Only a few years ago, there were three marriages for every divorce. Now, for every five marriages there are four divorces.

“Ironically, women give more clout to the fundamentalists, and if they had the vote would probably elect candidates who would deny women even more rights,” a Western ambassador said.

This ambiguous position is reflected at Kuwait University, where women may vote in student affairs. The student government is made up almost entirely of Muslim fundamentalists.

In recent months, 1,000 women submitted a petition to the prime minister saying they did not want to vote and that they favored polygamy. And in what may be the most bizarre manifestation of this ambivalence, several hundred women university graduates rode in buses to a meeting of the Kuwait Graduate Society to demand that they be thrown out of the group.

Erosion of Rights Feared

Some feminist leaders fear that the growing influence of fundamentalism may cause an erosion of the rights women already have. Fatimah al Hussein noted that in the 1950s and ‘60s women were first allowed to go abroad for education but that the law has now been changed so that only men will be sent overseas for schooling at government expense.

Despite the political conservatism of many Kuwaiti women, she said she is still not impressed by the argument that giving women the vote might be damaging to women’s rights.

“It’s a question of whether I accept the freedom to decide for myself,” she said. “If women want to vote for fundamentalists, well, that’s democracy.”