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A joint committee comprising representatives from the ministries of Justice and Foreign Affairs failed to accomplish its main goal, according to official records,
in curbing the phenomenon of Kuwaiti men marrying non-Kuwaiti women to reduce the number of unmarried Kuwaiti women, reports Al-Seyassah daily. In 2008, the committee compelled Kuwaitis who wished to marry non- Kuwaitis to seek official approval for registration of the marriage, which was not obtainable in many cases. The situation led many people to seek court rulings against the committee to acknowledge their marriages. Now, statistics from the legal notarization administration indicate the committee’s efforts have failed and the number of Kuwaiti men marrying their women compatriots has fallen steadily since 2007. The figure was 9,664 in 2007, which reduced to 9,238 in 2008, and 8,516 in 2009, and then it slid to 8,429 in 2010. Meanwhile, the number of Kuwaiti men marrying non-Kuwaiti women has somewhat increased since 2007 when the figure was only 1,187. A slight decrease was recorded in 2008 with 1,113 marriages, while 2009 witnessed a spike pushing the number to 1,379, which declined to 1,227 by the end of 2010. It also revealed the number of divorce cases between Kuwaiti couples was considerably higher than marriages between Kuwaiti men and non-Kuwaiti women in 2010, indicating 63 percent of Kuwaiti couples ended up in divorce, even as marriage among Kuwaiti men and non-Kuwaiti women was roughly 13 percent.
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