A Kuwaiti woman who once ran for parliament has called for sex slavery to be legalized - and suggested that non-Muslim prisoners from war-torn countries would make suitable concubines

Salwa al Mutairi argued that buying a sex-slave would protect decent, devout and virile Kuwaiti men from adultery because buying an imported sex partner would be tantamount to marriage. And she even had an idea of where to purchase these sex-salves - female prisoners of war from non-Islamic countries. She gave the example of Haroun al-Rashid, an 8th century Muslim leader who ruled over an area covered by modern-day Iran, Iraq and Syria and was rumoured to have 2,000 concubines. Mutairi recommended that offices could be opened to run the sex trade in the same way that recruitment agencies provide housemaids. She suggested shopping for prisoners of war so as to protect Kuwaiti men from being tempted to commit adultery or being seduced by other women's beauty. "For example, in the Chechnyan war, surely there are female Russian captives," she said. "So go and buy those and sell them here in Kuwait. Better than to have our men engage in forbidden sexual relations." In an attempt to consider the woman's feelings in the arrangement, Mutari conceded that the enslaved women, however, should be at least 15. Mutairi said that during a recent visit to Mecca, she asked Saudi muftis – Muslim religious scholars – what the Islamic ruling was on owning sex slaves. They said to her that it is not haram (this is a term referring to something that is forbidden under Islamic sharia law). One Saudi mufti told Mutairi: "The context must be that of a Muslim nation conquering a non-Muslim nation, so these jawari (this is an Arabic term meaning sex slaves) have to be prisoners of war."