In Kuwait there have been calls for stricter punishment for perpetrators of violent  crime against women following the brutal murder of a woman earlier this week. .

Al Jazeera reports that the brutal murder of Farah Hamza Akbar on Tuesday caused a storm of outrage on social media. Akbar’s murderer was alleged to be the man whose marriage proposal to Farah had been rejected by her family. According to Al Jazeera, she had twice previously filed a complaint of harassment against him.

The perpetrator, who was arrested and later released on bail, kidnapped the woman with her children in the car and stabbed her in the chest in the city of Sabah al-Salem. He then left her body and her children at the entrance to a hospital.

Kuwait’s Interior Ministry said he was arrested within hours of the murder, to which he is said to have later confessed.

A social media video showed the victim’s mother and sister crying outside the hospital. Akbar’s sister could be seen screaming, “That is what we got, exactly what we said, that he is going to kill her, and he killed my sister. Where is the government? We told the judge. I told you many times he would kill her, and now she’s dead.”

Social media users held authorities responsible saying that the perpetrator should never have been released considering that he had several times threatened to kill Akbar.

Meanwhile, just two months ago, activists in the country had launched a campaign across Kuwait to end sexual harassment and violence against women. During the campaign dozens of women had reportedly come forward on Instagram with testimonies about being stalked, harassed or assaulted.

Umm Muhammed Umar