UNDP Kuwait launches women legal empowerment website

Deputy Representative at UNDP-Kuwait Dima Al-Khatib said a website would be launched on International Women's Day, March 8, part of the Women Legal Empowerment Program. She added Kuwait is the only Gulf country implementing the program to date, which was originally proposed by the state and has UNDP backing which resulted in its implementation in several Arab states. The remarks came Wednesday night at a special ceremony announcing the launch of the website. Al-Khatib noted the program aims at increasing women's legal awareness and empowering them in all legal matters affecting their lives, as well as increasing their awareness on laws relating to women in particular. The program also aims to bolster mechanisms through which women can realize their right of access to legal information and improving their capacities of retrieving and obtaining such information through information technology tools. It also aims to guide and train main parties of interest when it comes to women and women affairs on using legal information, and this is of particular importance for representatives of civil community institutions, those in the legal profession, among others. Closer to home, Al-Khatib praised progress in Kuwait in realizing some millennium goals and expressed hope for more progress yet through empowering Kuwaiti women, noting in particular the hope to see more women in leading positions than the current seven percent. At the same event, director of the legal empowerment program and member of Kuwait Women Cultural and Social Society Ghada Al-Ghanim said the society is keen on seeing this program through and was also very active in many other initiatives recently touching on women and law issues. This effort resulted in the society being awarded Special Consultative Status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), which is also recognition of the society's key role within the Arab Women Association. This devotion to women causes, she said, promoted the UNDP-Kuwait to choose it as local partner to work to guarantee continued implementation of and work on the legal empowerment program. The project involved collection and simplification of legal literature and information, reviewing and updating the information, and providing access to the resulting material for both women and the public at large through the website, she said. The first phase of the project was executed over the past two years and was completed with the support and financing from UNDP-Kuwait and Kuwait's Supreme Council for Planning and Development. In view of the importance of the program, the Women Cultural and Social Society decided to support the second phase which includes launch of the website and provision of training courses for representatives of ministries and other state institutions. A media campaign to introduce the project is in the pipelines, she noted, stressing the technical committee's effort and devotion is behind this achievement, and the members deserve highest praise on this account.