Married inmates in Kuwait's prison will soon be allowed conjugal rights once every four months after the Islamic affairs ministry gave its nod to the scheme, a newspaper reported Sunday.
The ministry's Fatwa (religious ruling) department praised the scheme as "humanitarian and consistent with religion" and encouraged the interior ministry to implement it soon, Al-Qabas newspaper said.
The prison's director Colonel Hussein Abdelsalam said in June the scheme was part of efforts to combat homosexuality and to eliminate certain "immoral behavior" that has started to surface in jails.
The facility will allow convicts of both sexes to spend up to seven hours with their spouses and children under two years of age in special apartments equipped with bedrooms and kitchens.
But conjugal rights will be available only once every four months for inmates who are serving terms of more than three years, have good conduct records and can provide an authenticated wedding certificate.
Kuwait has a central prison that houses around 1,500 inmates, mainly for drug-related crimes and for issuing dud cheques -- KUWAIT CITY (AFP)
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