Massouma al-Mubarak
Encyclopedia
Massouma al-Mubarak is Kuwait
Kuwait
The State of Kuwait is a sovereign Arab state situated in the north-east of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the south at Khafji, and Iraq to the north at Basra. It lies on the north-western shore of the Persian Gulf. The name Kuwait is derived from the...

's first female minister, sworn in on June 20, 2005. She was Minister of Planning and Minister of State for Administrative Development. Massouma al-Mubarak was educated in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and is a professor of political science.

Biography

Massouma went to the US for higher education in 1971. She has two master's degrees and a doctorate from the University of Denver
University of Denver
The University of Denver is currently ranked 82nd among all public and private "National Universities" by U.S. News & World Report in the 2012 rankings....

. Since 1982 she has been teaching political science at the Kuwait University
Kuwait University
Kuwait University was established in October 1966, five years after Kuwait's independence from British Colonization. KU started with only two faculties, namely the Faculty of Science, Arts and Education; and a Women's College. The university had 418 students enrolled and 31 faculty members. By ,...

.

She has been active in the field of equal rights for women and also writes a daily column for Al-Anba newspaper. In 2002 she collected signatures on a petition opposing segregation by gender or abolishing coeducation in Kuwait.

On 25 August 2007, Massouma resigned as Minister of Health following after a fire in a hospital in Jahra. The fire killed two patients.

In the 2009 Kuwaiti parliamentary elections
Kuwaiti parliamentary election, 2009
An early parliamentary election was held in Kuwait on 16 May 2009, the country's third in a three-year period. Kuwait had voted on six occasions between 1991 and 2009...

, she and three other women won seats to become the first women to enter the Kuwaiti parliament
National Assembly of Kuwait
The National Assembly of Kuwait, known as the Majlis Al-Umma , is the legislature of Kuwait. The current speaker of the Assembly is Jassem Al-Kharafi. The Emir unconstitutionally dissolved the National Assembly in 1986 and restored it after the Gulf War in 1992...

.
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