Gulf regimes are paying only lip-service to women's rights by appointing to public offices a few females who are linked to the ruling establishment, a Kuwaiti activist charged.
"Is this inclusion of women in political and public life a starting point of real change and strategic objective, or lip-service and a token act by the regime?" asked Rula Dashti, who heads the Kuwait Economic Society and aspires to enter Kuwait's parliament in 2007's general election.
She accused the regional leaders of using "marginal appointments" of some regime-linked women as ministers and members of Shura (consultative) councils to serve as window dressing for the rest of the world.
All member states in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) -- except Saudi Arabia -- have at least one female minister. Kuwait was the last country to admit a woman into its cabinet last May through a historic move which granted women their full political rights after four decades of marginalization.
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