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Brian Katulis outlined the findings of the recent Freedom House report "Women's Rights in Focus: Kuwait," which is based on a series of nationwide focus groups conducted with Kuwaitis earlier this year as part of a larger project on women's rights in the Middle East and North Africa. The objective of the research was to gauge the attitudes of Kuwaiti men and women on women’s political rights. The findings were predominantly positive. A majority of Kuwaitis supported giving women the right to vote based on four major principles: Kuwaiti women are active in all other aspects of Kuwaiti life and society, Kuwait is falling behind other countries in the region in terms of equal rights, there is religious justification in Islam for female suffrage, and women are guaranteed these universal rights through the United Nations and numerous international declarations.

There was limited, but strong, opposition from religious and traditional voices of primarily young, unmarried Bedouin men. Both men and women reacted more negatively to the idea of women running for office, based on the perception that it would be dangerous to family life and that women are "too emotional" to hold office.

Kelley Jones recently returned from Kuwait, where she worked with female leaders from various facets of Kuwaiti society to build coalitions and promote collaboration between women’s groups. Traditional elites, young people, prominent women’s rights organizers and their lesser-known counterparts were brought together in a workshop to develop a lobbying strategy in order to pressure the government and parliament to support women’s suffrage and to learn media and public outreach skills to promote their cause. Jones observed a promising environment in Kuwait, with the women’s leaders motivated, energized and working together in an unprecedented fashion, but also noted that progress in the form of a parliamentary vote needs to happen soon in order to maintain the high level of enthusiasm about the issue. She also stressed that Kuwaiti women are in search of equality from a philosophical perspective, rather than looking for broad societal change in the areas of jobs or education, where Kuwaiti women are already strongly represented.

Neil Hicks provided a general overview of human rights promotion in the unique context of the Middle East and commented specifically on the difficulties of promoting women's rights in the region. Kuwait is falling out of step with prevailing trends in the Middle East; Saudi Arabia is the only other Arab country whose women do not have the right to vote. He pointed out that the example of Muslim women's political rights in neighboring states should be highlighted in making the case for Kuwaiti women's political rights. Hicks suggested that some conservative Kuwaitis may be opposed to women's suffrage because of the comfort factor found in being able to control a traditional aspect of society at a time when other economic and societal changes are taking place at a tremendous and unstoppable pace. Hicks warned against seeing an Islamic revival movement and a human rights or liberal movement as being diametrically opposed, suggesting that the two can work together within a single framework to promote human rights in Muslim countries.