Kuwaiti MP Hamdan Al-Azemi: Women Should Stay Home, They Are the Reason the Streets Are Crowded

In a TV talk show, Kuwaiti MP Hamdan Al-Azemi said that he believed that women should not leave the home and that offering a salary to encourage them to stay at home would save money for the state. "The women are the reason that the streets are so crowded," he said in the program, which aired on the Kuwaiti Al-Adala TV channel on May 25, 2015.

Following are excerpts:

Interviewer: What exactly are you suggesting? That women stay at home and never go out?

Hamdan Al-'Azemi: Look, I am very clear about this. A woman should be nowhere but home. Some brothers ask me how I can possibly say this. This is my conviction. On the contrary, women are the enemies of women. With all due respect, we've tried... In the elections (women did not vote for female candidates). You could see this even among the MPs. I offered to pay a salary to women who stay at home. It would save money for the state. But they said: How can we pay her for sitting at home? I gave Japan as an example. They give the woman a choice between working and staying at home. After all these years, look at Japan and look at us. They gave women a choice: If they stay at home they get a salary, and if they go to work, they get, well, a larger salary.

Panelist: If the woman stays at home she will become a servant, and men will have two servants instead of just one.

Hamdan Al-'Azemi: Well, the salary of a servant has reached 1,200 dinars. Why is that? What is the reason?

Panelist: The wives?

Hamdan Al-'Azemi: The women are the reason that the streets are so crowded. Honestly.

Panelist: You should pass a law prohibiting women from leaving their homes altogether, so that women will not be allowed to go even to hospital. They will die.

Hamdan Al-'Azemi: No, no.

Panelist: That's what it means...

Hamdan Al-'Azemi: No, not to that extent. Even the shari'a... What about human rights?

Panelist: Well, that's my opinion.

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