An official study conducted by the Ministry of Justice, the divorce rate in the country is expected to rise by around 4.5 percent annually from the 7,575 cases in 2018 to over 8900 by 2022. The study also found that more than 83,000 divorces were recorded in the country over the past 10 years. This is a heavy toll on a population of less than 4.6 million people of whom Kuwaitis account for only a third.
Divorce splits apart not only the individual couples involved, but also their families, and most importantly their children who are irredeemably impacted by the psychological trauma of their parents’ divorce.
Though the ministry of justice has been meticulously recording and giving its official recognition to divorces every year, it is perplexing that it has only been monitoring the causes of divorces without coming up with an efficient mechanism to tackle it on the social level. Yes, it is true that there is a department in the ministry tasked with following up family affairs and protecting family life, but their activities are limited to handing out leaflets and reacting to divorces, instead of pursuing proactive measures.
It is even more inexplicable why parliamentarians who every time they adjust their ‘ghutrah’, never fail to speak against norms they believe to be against family values and Kuwaiti culture, are so deafeningly silent about divorces in the country.
