Prosecution statistics on domestic violence alarming

Although Kuwait issued a law in late 2020 regarding domestic violence, the numbers revealed by courts still sound the alarm about the increase in domestic violence crimes in the country.

A recent statistics from the Public Prosecution, a copy of which have been obtained by Al-Qabas daily, revealed that 779 new cases related to domestic violence were registered in the related court during 9 months from the beginning of this year until the first of last October.

These numbers ring alarm bells, because they mean that a crime of “domestic violence” is recorded in the country every 12 hours, and this means this phenomenon needs to be studied in depth and find solutions before it is too late to protect the Kuwaiti families.

A legal source told the daily the issuance of the law against domestic violence in Kuwait is a good thing, but it does not prevent it from occurring, especially since the executive regulations of the aforementioned law were not issued until the current year, that is, more than two years after the law was issued, which made it just ink on paper and rendered it inactive on the in the real sense.

The source pointed out that many cases before the courts often end in small financial fines, which are not worth the loss of effort, time and money spent on hiring lawyers to plead in these cases.

According to the source, the phenomenon, which requires the solidarity of all parties to confront and eliminate it, requires at the same time the preparation of a study that includes its various aspects, and ends with developing recommendations that represent a road map for implementation by those concerned.

What confirms that the matter needs to be studied is what the Attorney General, Counselor Saad Al-Safran, said on November 8, every necessary measure must be taken to ensure the protection of the Kuwaiti family, and the future of the children and youth of Kuwait with a solid fence of care and reassurance to develop effective solutions to address the huge increase in the number of simple cases that tear apart by the bonds of kinship, brotherhood and lineage.

The Attorney General’s directive came on the occasion of the announcement of the Public Prosecution’s meeting with representatives of the relevant authorities in the Ministries of Interior and Social Affairs, to coordinate and unify efforts in public interest by developing a comprehensive plan and practical program to implement the executive mechanism of the Domestic Violence Law and its executive regulations.