10% of Kuwait population wanted for crimes

Well, if today's Kuwait Times article is to be believed, around 10% of the population are wanted for crimes.

250,000 cases outstanding

Published Date: May 26, 2007

KUWAIT: The Ministry of Interior disclosed that the number of persons required to appear before the Ministry of Justice for financial cases has reached more than 100,000, reported Al-Watan. They said that this figure did not include persons wanted for criminal charges and if that would be taken into account, then the figures could reach almost 250,000.

Official sources said that there were 120,000 persons involved in financial cases, who have a travel ban against them out of which 90,000 persons were Kuwaitis and 30,000 Arabs and foreigners. Officials at the Ministry of Interior also said that they had 250,000 arrest warrants for people to be tried in the courts, adding that financial cases varied from as little as KD 50 to millions of Kuwaiti dinars.

Some of the wanted persons have evaded arrests for years after changing their places of residence several times and hence were never found at the addresses. Ministry of Interior officials said that they were exercising their best efforts to arrest the wanted persons. They also called upon all persons who had settled their outstanding debts to approach the courts to close their files and lift the travel bans issued against them.

This is a pretty amazing statistic, when you factor in that about 35% of the population is under 20 years of age and unlikely to have criminal charges registered against them, which then makes the proportion of wanted criminals about 15% of the population. And then if you account for the vast amount of unreported crime, the "wasta" affect and the dropping of criminal charges, well...

Or, how about the crimes of humanity and injustice that aren't even considered crimes here, such as the abuse and non-payment of salaries of maids or labourers.

One statistic I'd like to know is how many Kuwaitis have had criminal charges laid against them for the crime of rape? Sure, everyday there are cases reported in the newspapers, often in graphic details, but you never read of anyone being criminally charged for the crime. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. When you see or hear of the hundreds of cases of maids that have suffered this crime, and know for a fact that most of these cases go unreported...

When will the Kuwait policing and justice systems catch up with international standards?