Fortunately, there has been an outcry from communities calling on courts and legislative bodies to abolish these laws. A women’s rights organization called “Abolish 153” is leading the fight to abolish the honor killing law in Kuwait, and hopes to expand its cause to other countries in the region. Abolish 153 was founded by five Kuwaiti women, based on the research of Abolish 153 Board Member Dr. Alanoud Alsharekh, one of the country’s foremost scholars on women’s rights and Arab Feminist Theory. Abolish 153 is using Dr. Alsharekh’s research to spearhead a public discussion of laws that institutionalize gender violence. Moreover, it is working to eliminate such laws. The organization benefits from the help of attorney Dr. Hesham al Saleh, a Constitutional expert and the law partner of Hon. Ali al Rashed, former judge and former Speaker of Kuwait’s Parliament. The attorneys are strategizing over how to file a case in Kuwait to challenge the constitutionality of the law but there are some obstacles.
The first major obstacle to challenging the constitutionality of Article 153 is finding a plaintiff who would have standing. Under Kuwaiti law, one must have been directly harmed by the law to have standing. Islamic law, as interpreted by Kuwait, would grant the right to constitutionally challenge Article 153 to the family of the deceased victim. However, killings in the name of honor, if the family acquiesces, are unlikely to be reported to authorities, much less litigated by the family. Those who commit these murders do not view them as a crime, rather as a duty.
Another obstacle to standing is that the highest court in Kuwait has read the law very narrowly in its opinions. The narrow reading of Article 153 is a victory for women’s rights within criminal law because it has led to murder convictions but simultaneously it is preventing the constitutional litigation that Abolish 153 wants to file to challenge the honor killing law. A constitutional challenge could only be brought before the court if a defendant makes a successful Article 153 claim. If the court denies his claim and convicts him of murder, no challenge can be filed. It’s a catch 22: the honor killing law cannot be challenged even though the defendant had the sociocultural intent of an honor killing.
The narrow reading of the law and unwillingness to report honor killings make it difficult to find a plaintiff who has standing to challenge Article 153. The cultural and traditional motive for this type of killing is honor but if the court denies the defendant’s Article 153 claim, then pursuant to legal standards, it appears the killing was not an honor killing. Unwittingly, the courts have stripped the victim and her family of constitutional recourse against the problematic law. The narrow rulings leave Article 153 untouchable, for now.
Abolish 153’s fight for legal equality is difficult and complex. But it is the first step to opening up the conversation about gender violence, a topic often ignored and considered taboo in the country and the region.
