WUNRN
KUWAIT - FOREIGN WOMEN MARRIED TO
KUWAIT MEN WILL NOW NEED GOVERNMENT COMMITTEE APPROVAL TO LIVE IN KUWAIT
KUWAIT
- January 20, 2013 - Foreign women who married Kuwaiti
men after January 2010 will need the approval of a special committee to be able
to live in Kuwait. “The interior ministry has stopped stamping residence
permits to the foreign wives of Kuwaiti nationals and whose marriage took place
after Jan 1, 2010,” security sources said. “These couples now need the approval
of the committee set up by Interior Minister Sheikh Ahmad Al- Humood and which
includes representatives from the interior, foreign and justice ministries and
the National Security Agency,” the sources said.
Mixed couples married before 2010 will not be affected by the decision and will continue to submit the wife’s papers to the immigration authorities. “For the new couples, the committee will be the one to contact the immigration authorities to inform them whether the foreign wife’s papers are accepted or rejected,” a local newspaper reported on Monday.
The sources attributed the move to make the committee decide on the permits to foreign wives to “a need to reduce the number of marriages between Kuwaiti men and expatriate women.” The number of such marriages has reached high figures in recent years and there is a need to address the increasingly worrying issue of Kuwaiti women not getting married.
The decision is also driven by security concerns amid worries that some of the marriages were based on common interests and not on forming families,” the sources said