KUWAIT: A Gallup survey suggests that 99 percent of people in Kuwait feel it’s safe to walk alone at night in the area where they live. The survey, which included 1,071 people and was conducted over landline and mobile telephone in Arabic, Bengali, English and Hindi. Kuwait topped Gallup’s global ranking, in which the the American analytics and advisory company, posed the question (Do you feel safe walking alone at night in the area where you live) to almost 146,000 adults in 140 countries and territories. 

Kuwait posted scores in the 90s on the index in 2022 and in 2019. The country’s 2023 score is its highest to date. Four percent of respondents said they experienced assault and 1 percent said they experienced theft. Kuwaiti residents were not asked about their confidence in the police.

“In most economically developed countries and territories with strong rule of law, high majorities of residents said they feel safe walking alone in their areas at night. The same is true in countries where populations are under tighter state control. For example, these feelings were nearly universal in 2023 in countries such as Kuwait (99 percent), Singapore (94 percent), Tajikistan (92 percent), Saudi Arabia (92 percent) and the United Arab Emirates (90 percent),” said Gallup in a press release.

Notably, on a global level, people felt safer in 2023 than they did a decade ago. The 70 percent of adults across the world who said they felt safe walking alone at night last year is considerably higher than the 64 percent who reported this in 2013. However, progress has stalled in the past few years, and in 2023, slightly fewer people felt safe than they did in 2020, when a record-high 72 percent felt safe.

Regionally, at least seven in 10 people felt safe in Asia-Pacific, Western Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, Northern America (US and Canada) and in post-Soviet Eurasia. People continue to feel the least safe in sub-Saharan Africa (51 percent) and Latin America and the Caribbean (47 percent). Further, feelings of safety have declined more in sub-Saharan Africa than in any other region over the past two decades. In Latin America and the Caribbean, the percentage who said they felt safe has never topped 50 percent at any point.