“I Will Not Be Silenced”: Women in Kuwait Fight Back Against Violence

On April 20, a Kuwaiti woman, Farah Hamza Akbar, was brutally murdered in broad daylight. Her perpetrator had been harassing and threatening her for allegedly refusing his marriage proposal. Akbar filed two separate complaints with the police; but despite being arrested and later released on bail, he persisted. On that fateful day, the harasser crashed into Akbar’s car, abducted her, stabbed her in the chest, and dumped her body outside a hospital in Kuwait City.

In a viral video, Akbar’s sister — a lawyer who had sought protection for her — was seen wailing that their pleas to the authorities went ignored; the harasser did what he had promised he would.

The video sparked an outrage in Kuwaiti society, signaling the ever-present and persistent problem of harassment and gender-based violence that women in the country are subjected to on a daily basis. “All of us know somebody that has either died or been in a near-fatal accident because a man was following them and trying to push them off-road,” says Noor Al Obaid, a human rights activist.

“I cannot drive or walk down the street without being harassed and catcalled. It’s become a norm now,” she says. “When Akbar was killed, people realized the magnitude of the situation and how unsafe the country is for women.”

A social media movement

It was only three months earlier that an online campaign akin to #MeToo had sparked a nationwide movement. In an impassioned video, blogger Ascia Al Faraj spoke to her 2.5 million followers about the harassment she experiences and witnesses on a daily basis. Following Al Faraj’s viral video, Shayma Shamo, a medical doctor, founded Lan Asket (I will not be silenced), an Instagram account and hashtag for victims to anonymously share their stories of sexual harassment, violence, and abuse.

“In Arab culture, shame acts as a shroud that prevents people from sharing their stories. We are shamed into silence,” explains Shamo. “Kuwait didn’t have a safe space for people to openly share. I wanted to remove that barrier and show that being silent is no longer an option.”

Overnight, the account blew up with people sharing their stories, and soon Kuwaiti society was openly talking about a taboo topic. “For the first time, so many conservative girls were having online and offline discussions about this unavoidable topic — everyone was talking about it,” says Najeeba Hayat, a friend of Al Faraj and an activist who joined forces with Al Faraj and Shamo.

“Clubhouse took off around then and for the first time, Kuwaiti society comes across terms like feminism, patriarchy, and intersectionality,” she adds. While finally, there was a safe space and open dialogue on sexual harassment, there was also an aggressive, antifeminist outrage.

“We were seeing comments like ‘It’s not that bad, you’re exaggerating!’” Hayat explains. “Misogyny is so deep-rooted that certain sections of society continued to negate the daily harassment that we experienced.”

Together with Al Faraj, Hayat started a social media campaign that countered these denials by sharing TikTok videos of how she was harassed in public spaces.

By March, the online buzz around #LanAsket seemed to have died down. That is, until Akbar was murdered.

“It was impossible to keep quiet after this,” Shamo says.

A group of activists led by Shamo, Hayat, and Al Faraj conducted a virtual mourning, encouraging Kuwaitis to capture a video or photo wearing all-black attire. “It was a highly visual way for women to stand in solidarity with the victim and share our collective grief, anger, and disappointment with a society whose norms and laws facilitated this violence,” Hayat explains.

Call for legal, judicial, and social reforms

Farah Akbar was not the first or only victim — in September of last year, Fatima Al Ajmi was killed by her brother in a case of domestic violence. In December, Shaikha Al Ajmi, a guard at the National Assembly, was murdered allegedly by her brother in a case of honor killing.

While women’s rights groups have been shining light on honor killing, the average Kuwaiti woman saw it as an issue far removed from her. “But Akbar’s case — harassment is the undercurrent to our lives. It could’ve been me,” Hayat says.

Perhaps it was this sentiment that drove a groundswell of support from women who were now saying “enough.”

Over the next few days, Kuwaitis rallied to condemn Akbar’s murder and call for reforms to the legal and judiciary system that is failing to protect women.

Loopholes in the Kuwaiti Penal Code permit offenders to evade justice after committing crimes. At the forefront of activists’ demands for changes to the law are Article 182 (which exempts rapists from punishment if they marry the victim) and Article 153 (which treats honor killing as a misdemeanor with a maximum sentence of up to three years).

In a statement by the Women’s Alliance (comprised of civil society groups, student associations, and independent campaigns), women announced that they are lobbying for “active implementation of a domestic violence act, activation of a hotline to facilitate the processing of a woman’s complaints, training police officers on protocol to receive complaints of harassment and assault, laws requiring the presence of female police officers in every precinct, control and inspection apparatus, and increase in severity and proper enforcement of penalties for crimes of violence against women.”

The Lan Asket team is currently establishing a support group for victims of gender-based violence, developing a survey to investigate what prevents victims from reporting harassment, and educating young women on their rights. Al Faraj and Hayat are working on a toolkit that educates corporate officials on how to make the workplace inclusive and safe for both Kuwaiti and non-Kuwaiti women.