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Al-Awadhi slams bid to ban sportswomen from Olympics Published Date: March 06, 2010 KUWAIT: Responding to recent parliamentary questions over Kuwaiti women's right to participate in international sporting events, MP Dr. Aseel Al-Awadhi has categorically rejected any form of discrimination against women, whether in sport or in any other field. The MP suggested that any move by Minister of Social Affairs and Labor Dr. Mohammed Al-Afasi to placate the parliamentary alien phenomena committee by banning Kuwaiti sportswomen from participating in the Olympics could lead to his being subjected to an interpolation. She expressed astonishment at fellow MP and committee member Jamaan Al-Harbish's demands that Kuwaiti women be excluded from participating in the Olympics, pointing out that any such ban would be counter to the constitution, which all MPs have sworn to uphold. Such a prohibition would in particular directly contradict the constitutional article outlawing any form of discrimination among citizens, she indicated, adding that the alien phenomena committee's demand should be rejected on principle. Al-Awadhi questioned how it was possible to ask the state to ban women from participating in such events and to quash the ambitions and achievements of females wishing to take part in them. We are a state that resorts to the constitution in all matters under dispute and the constitution and Kuwaiti law do not ban women from participating in the Olympic Games and sports in general," she asserted. The MP also pointed out that female competitors from many other Muslim countries take part in the Olympics, suggesting that the problems over this issue here are related to the misogynistic system put in place in Kuwait to prevent women from practicing their full role in society and have nothing to do with Islam itself.