‘Kuwait is unsafe for women’: Outrage in Gulf after man arrested for murder while on bail

Women in Kuwait are demanding protection and tougher punishments for perpetrators of violent crime, after a man was arrested for murdering a woman while released on bail for harassing her.

Outrage has spread across the tiny Gulf country after a man fatally stabbed a woman and dumped her body outside a hospital, just days into the holy month of Ramadan. 

Videos circulating on social media show the victim’s distraught sister screaming at authorities outside the hospital, saying that their pleas to protect her had been ignored.

“I told you many times he would kill her, and now she’s dead!” the woman is heard saying in Arabic. 

The man had reportedly been earlier detained after harassing the woman and threatening to kill her and her sister, and was on bail at the time he committed the alleged murder. 

Police say the man has been arrested after he kidnapped the woman, and her children, on Tuesday, before taking her to an “undisclosed location”, where he stabbed her. He then drove to a nearby hospital, where he left her body outside the entrance.

The victim’s name, Farah Akbar, is now trending as a hashtag in Kuwait, as women call for justice and protection against violent crime targeted at females. Support has been shown by the conservative kingdom’s male residents, too.

The government has been accused of failing to protect its citizens, with many saying women are abused and beaten on a daily basis, but basic protection eludes them. The hashtag “I am the next victim” is also trending. 

The murder comes weeks after Kuwaiti activists launched their own version of the #MeToo movement, in an attempt to end sexual harassment and violence against women. Under the Arabic hashtag, “lan asket”, which translates to “I will not be silenced”, Kuwaiti women in February shared stories on social media of being sexually harassed or assaulted in the kingdom, often in broad daylight.

Lifestyle blogger Ascia Al Faraj, who first ignited Kuwait’s #MeToo movement with her own experience of sexual harassment, tweeted today: “Kuwait is unsafe for women. They will harass us until they murder us”, while also posting several videos criticising the government over their inaction on her other social media platforms.

Akbar’s body and children were found outside a hospital in the area of Sabah al-Salem in Kuwait City on Tuesday.

In a statement, Kuwait’s Ministry of Interior said they had received a report of a woman being kidnapped, in her own car. Security forces were dispatched to the scene of the kidnap, where they then received another report from a hospital that the victim in question had died.

Videos circulating on social media on Wednesday, reportedly uploaded by the victim’s lawyer, show the man walking free from the hospital after leaving Akbar’s body there. He is filmed moments after he is alleged to have crashed his car into the victim’s sister’s car, as he walks calmly to his own awaiting pick-up truck.

However, in their statement, the ministry said the man was arrested in “record time”. After police confronted the man, he admitted to fatally stabbing Akbar.

The man has since been identified on social media as 30-year-old Fahad Subhi Mohammed, with his name becoming a hashtag and his ID card being widely shared.

Kuwait’s lenient laws that fail to protect women against violence have long been a source of outrage. According to Human Rights Watch, Kuwait has no laws against domestic violence, sexual harassment, or marital rape.

However, in a country where speaking about such issues is often considered taboo, the ground swell of support is now gaining traction. 

An Instagram page named after the movement launched in February, lan asket, launched in February, calling on women to share their experiences and testimonies of sexual harassment. 

The page, launched by 27-year-old doctor Shayma Shamo, has also been used to share infographics defining harassment and calls for harsher penalties for those who target females. It has since amassed 13,500 followers, and featured dozens of stories of harassment from women in the kingdom.