Manama: Kuwaitis have called for a study of the phenomenon of Kuwaiti women taking foreign husbands after records for the first five months of this year indicated that 1,020 Kuwaiti women got married to non-Kuwaiti men.
The mixed marriages make up a slight figure of the 11,258 weddings celebrated between January and May and are less than half of the 2,759 marriages between Kuwaiti men and non-Kuwaiti women. However, for conservative Kuwaitis, the figure is too high and warrants a study to understand its causes and appreciate its consequences.
Kuwaiti women, despite impressive political rights and a presence both in parliament and in the government, have no right to transfer their nationality to their children, a fact that deeply affects their schooling and their inheritance since it hinders them from inheriting real estate from their mother.
According to the statistics, 604 Kuwaiti couples divorced in the first five months of the year, compared with 182 Kuwaiti men divorcing their foreign wives and 53 Kuwaiti women divorcing their non-Kuwaiti husbands.
In neighbouring Qatar, 1,207 couples got married between January and May, with 724 weddings celebrated between Qatari couples.
According to Qatar Statistics Authority (QSA), the highest figure of marriages, 291, was in April.
