Victory for women's rights in Kuwait reawakens hope.

BMJ VOLUME 333 21 OCTOBER 2006 bmj.com For the past 26 years Lulwa Almulla has worked around the world and in her home country to promote the rights of women. She has camped with fellow campaigners outside the tents where male Kuwaiti politicians had gathered, determined to be allowed to take part in the discussions. And she has stood besides thousands of other women in the searing heat and humidity to demonstrate their commitment to voting rights. Almulla’s efforts finally paid off in May last year when Kuwaiti women were granted the right to vote and run for public office. “I felt victorious that I had played a part in this historic moment. Use whatever words you need to explain that joy,” she says. Although Almulla helps to run the family business in real estate and investments, it is her volunteering work that motivates her. “I have my own office and job. But it [my work with the society and the suffrage movement in Kuwait] is my main interest. It takes all my life. But I love it,” she said. It is a paradox that Kuwait should have been one of the last countries in the Middle East to give women political rights. In many respects the country is one of the most advanced in the Persian Gulf. Kuwaiti women make up 70% of university students and 40% of the workforce. Women are present in all professional fields, including education, medicine, and journalism, as well as business and government. But the work to promote women’s rights does not end with winning the vote, says Almulla. The next step is to train women to become elected members of parliament and to take an active role in deciding the country’s direction. Almulla first became politically active at the Beirut College for Women at Kuwait University in 1968. Since 1991 she has been secretary general of the Women’s Social and Cultural Society in Kuwait, an organisation set up in 1963 by some of Kuwait’s first women university graduates. The society’s aim is simple: to encourage women in all fields, from promoting their participation in community activities to increasing their awareness of their political and legal rights.