Women’s Benefits in Light of Uninterested Media

The Kuwait Society for Human Rights issued a report on media handling of women’s issues during the third quarter of this year, which included monitoring and analyzing how media addresses the benefits that Kuwaiti women obtained that were officially approved.

The report, entitled “Women’s Benefits in Light of an Uninterested Media,” stated that women witnessed three important gains during the third quarter of 2020. The Domestic Violence Protection Law was passed, 8 female judges took the legal oath before the President of the Supreme Judicial Council, and the Head of the Constitutional and Cassation Courts on the occasion of their appointment as judges in the Plenary Court as the first female judges in the history of the State of Kuwait, and the amendment of the Women’s Health Guardianship Law to allow the mother to sign the surgeries procedures for her children and interfere in the issue of their treatment after the matter was limited to the father and male guardians only.

The report sheds light on these gains. It carried out a survey and follow-up process for the types of media materials through which these gains were talked about. It also monitored the quality and number of content and how these gains were talked about. It made comparisons between the journalistic arts published in 3 random media outlets from the local media, which are newspapers (Al-Qabas, Al-Jarida, and Al-Rai).

The report monitored 45 press articles that addressed women’s gains during the reporting period in the three aforementioned newspapers, at the rate of one media article per two days. The press news accounted for the lion’s share, as it received 53% of the total published material at a rate of 24 news, while the report came second at a rate of 12 reports, then the press article came third, with a share of only 7 articles, then one video and one press interview during the reporting period.

This was the release of the report within the framework of the Takamul Project that aims to promote gender equality in Kuwaiti society, which is implemented in cooperation with the U.S.-Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI).

Mohammad Shaharyan