5. Two legislative proposals have been submitted to the Kuwaiti Parliament to amend the Nationality Law. In 2017, two members of parliament, Al Hamidi Al Subaie and Dr. Khalil Ali, submitted a proposal to amend Article 2 of the Lawi which provides that “anyone is considered Kuwaiti whomever is born in Kuwait or outside to a Kuwaiti father or mother”. The other legislative proposal sought to grant the children of Kuwaiti women married to non-nationals the right to acquire the nationality upon reaching the age of 21, with certain pre-conditions including residence in Kuwait until reaching adulthood. Both of these proposals are still pending in the parliament with no indication that the proposals will in fact be discussed or considered by the Parliament in the near future. 6. UN committees including the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and the Committee on the Rights of the Child have urged Kuwait to ensure gender equality in the 1959 Nationality Law and to undertake a comprehensive review of all existing laws that affect gender equality. 7. In its responses to the recommendations of the Working Group of the Universal Periodic Review session held in January 2015, the delegation indicated that Kuwaiti citizenship law No.15/1959 “provides children of Kuwaiti women with Kuwaiti citizenship in certain cases for humanitarian reasons (art. 3). Article 5 also stipulated that citizenship would be passed on to the children of Kuwaiti women when those children remained residents of Kuwait at the age of majority, especially if their foreign father was a prisoner of war, or if the father had obtained a final divorce, or was deceased”ii. 8. The State of Kuwait did not support the recommendations made by some countries, in the report of the Working Group of the Universal Periodic Review on 16 June 2010, to consider repealing discriminatory laws including the Nationality Law , for example that Kuwait should “[r]eview and amend its laws to ensure gender equality in all its legislation, amongst others, in the Nationality Law, and guarantee that all Kuwaiti women are able to transfer nationality to their children and ensure to all Kuwaiti women equal access to their social and economic rights.iii 9. In particular, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights committee, in its concluding observation on the third periodic report of Kuwait on 11 August 2016 recommended Kuwait “should: (a) undertake a comprehensive review of existing laws to repeal or amend, in accordance with the Covenant, all discriminatory provisions that affect gender equality; (b) take appropriate measures to enhance and promote equality”.iv Impunity for rapists and so-called honor crimes 10. Article 182 of the Kuwaiti Penal Code exempts rapists from punishment if they marry their victims, thereby promoting violence against women and girls. It states that if a perpetrator of rape legally marries the victim with the permission of the victim’s guardian, and the guardian requests that the perpetrator not be punished, then the perpetrator will enjoy impunity. The law serves to ward off “shame” and preserve the “honor and dignity” of the victim’s family. Women and girls who are kidnapped and/or raped are often forced into marrying their 3