Kill Their Own Blood? Honor Killings, Family, and Human Rights

Shuddhashar FreeVoice magazine - Whenever an honor killing crime makes the headlines, I can’t help but wonder, how could anyone kill their own blood? Honor killings, including other acts of violence referred to as honor-based violence, typically carried out by family members against a relative — usually a woman or girl — are instigated by a perception that the woman or girl has brought shame upon the family and hence deserves punishment. Individuals’ rights have no value in those cases as family honor is the priority, according to deeply rooted cultural and societal norms. Refusing an arranged marriage, dating someone the family disapproves of, or being accused of sexual misconduct are some of the reasons that could lead some family members to target the woman or girl.

These acts are common in places with significant gender inequality and are often fueled by misinterpretations of cultural or religious beliefs. If we ask the male family member who committed the act of violence about their motivation, they would say it was necessary to protect the family’s honor. This reflects deep-rooted cultural norms that value the family’s reputation over the individual’s rights.

Kinship Manifested in Violence: A Paradox

What is troubling about honor killings is that blood is both a symbol of kinship and a tool for violence. A paradox indeed! Blood ties are supposed to be the deepest bonds of love and protection, but at the same time, they can be twisted into a rationale for murder under the guise of preserving family honor. It baffles me how the same familial bond that nurtures and sustains life also becomes the justification for taking it away. The only explanation I managed to arrive at is that cultural norms can transform the intimate connection of blood into a means of control and upholding patriarchal values.

Unfortunately, there are numerous cases of honor killings in Middle Eastern communities. Some of these include the murder of Israa Ghrayeb in Palestine in 2019 by her family members for appearing in a social media post with her fiancé, the murder of a daughter by her father in Egypt in 2018 for having an affair, the brutal killing of Dua Khalil Aswad, stoned to death in 2007 by a mob including her relatives in Iraq for having an affair with a Sunni man, and the case of Iraqi-Kurdish Banaz Mahmod in the UK in 2006, killed by her family for leaving an abusive arranged marriage and starting a new relationship.

Legal consequences in these cases have shown inconsistency, revealing difficulties in prosecuting such crimes. In the cases of Israa and Banaz, their family members were convicted. In the case of the Egyptian daughter, her father received a life sentence. However, in Dua’s case, despite the murder being captured on video, only a few perpetrators were brought to justice. These cases show how the intimate bonds of family can be weaponized, leading to devastating consequences for individuals, particularly women and girls. In the absence of strong legal protection, women and girls would continue to be potential victims of those crimes. There should be a mechanism of accountability and justice to end these crimes.

Norms and Misinterpretations

Various societies strongly believe in patriarchal values, stemming from certain cultural norms and misinterpretations of religious texts, which prioritize family honor. These values enforce strict gender roles and control over women’s behavior, often justifying violence for the sake of restoring family reputation. Growing up in Yemen, a Muslim country, I was taught some Quranic verses and Hadith about modesty and family honor. Teachers and religious figures often interpret these teachings in a way that justifies violence against women.

However, mainstream Islamic teachings and scholars emphasize that honor killings are a severe misrepresentation of religious doctrine and are not condoned by Islam. Unfortunately, the prevalence of these misinterpretations leaves little room for understanding otherwise. Thus, honor killings are wrongly seen as acceptable or necessary to maintain social order.

Given these circumstances, women and girls often have no real option other than conforming to traditional norms to maintain social standing. Any resistance to societal pressure, rigid gender roles, and community expectations might lead to violence. Families feel intense pressure to control their daughters, sisters, or any female relatives to uphold perceived honor. Individuals also feel the need to preserve societal reputation over personal liberties, perpetuating honor killings.

Those who commit honor killings are often compelled by societal pressure to conform to traditional expectations and moral considerations, maintaining their family’s honor in the community’s eyes. The lack of widespread condemnation or opposition to honor killings perpetuates the status quo, making it tough to challenge these violent acts.

A Chance to Live Freely

I always thought I was lucky that I grew up with little influence of male members in my family. My parents separated when I was nearly 7 years old. That meant that my father left our home since my childhood. During those 7 years, he was kind to me and my sister but not to my mother and his sisters. Thank God I didn’t have a brother. After separation, my mother and father divorced a few years later. With that, there was no way for my father to control me, my sister, or my mother. The family’s reputation was still significant to my father.

Growing up in this environment, I was able to witness firsthand how the absence of strict patriarchal control can influence a woman’s life. My mother, sister, and I were able to live more freely without the constant fear of bringing shame to our family. This experience starkly contrasts with the harsh realities faced by many women in the Middle East who live under the oppressive weight of family honor.

Understanding my own relative freedom made me acutely aware of the severe restrictions placed on women in similar cultures, where any deviation from prescribed behavior can result in tragic consequences like honor killings. The way my life turned out has only deepened my empathy for the victims of honor-based violence and strengthened my resolve to advocate for change.

A Much-Warranted Change

The heartbreaking stories of Israa, Dua, Banaz, and others reveal how deeply ingrained cultural norms can twist familial love into a tool for control and violence. These cases underscore the urgent need for societal change and strong legal protections for women.

Given the scale of the issue, tackling honor killings requires a comprehensive approach. This strategy should operate on three levels: legal, social, and educational. Human rights groups stress that legal accountability and public awareness are key to ending honor killings. It’s not enough to just have laws on paper; governments must enforce strict penalties for those who commit these crimes and ensure cultural justifications are not accepted as excuses. Human Rights Watch points out that stronger legal frameworks and consistent enforcement can significantly reduce these incidents.

Laws protecting women’s rights are essential for deterring potential offenders and providing justice for victims. However, legal measures alone aren’t sufficient. Ongoing social efforts are also necessary. A holistic approach that combines legal action with education, public discussions, and support systems for women is crucial for making lasting changes.

Implementing educational programs that promote gender equality and challenge patriarchal norms is vital for shifting public perception. Advocacy groups play a crucial role in raising awareness and supporting victims. Collaborative efforts between NGOs, community leaders, and government bodies can drive cultural change and support victim rehabilitation.

The Outlook

Changing deeply ingrained beliefs that devalue women is no easy task. Honor killings, rooted in cultural traditions and misinterpretations of religious teachings, show the struggle between maintaining societal norms and protecting human rights. This tension presents a significant challenge for Arab communities and governments, as inconsistent legal responses highlight the difficulties in prosecuting these crimes effectively.

Human rights groups, such as Kafa in Lebanon, Nazra for Feminist Studies in Egypt, and others, are working tirelessly to pressure governments to reform laws and practices that enable honor killings. They push for stronger legal frameworks that align with global human rights standards. Implementing these reforms is crucial for safeguarding women’s rights and improving a country’s international reputation.

Efforts to eradicate honor killings are closely tied to broader movements for gender equality. Educational programs and community advocacy are vital in challenging patriarchal norms and changing public perceptions. These initiatives can gradually transform societal attitudes towards women’s rights, reducing the acceptance of such violence.

The prevalence and acceptance of honor killings vary across the Arab world, influenced by local cultural, religious, and legal factors. While some countries have made notable strides in legal reform and education, others continue to struggle with deeply entrenched norms resistant to change. This variation calls for tailored approaches that respect local contexts while aiming for universal human rights standards.

Given the complexity of honor killings in Arab culture, the solution would be complex as well. We must navigate a complex web of cultural, legal, and social factors. But remember, every step we take toward change and reform is a step toward saving lives. It’s a daunting journey, but one that we must undertake with courage, empathy, and unwavering commitment to justice.

Afrah Nasser: "Believe that you are worth listening to."

A feature about Afrah Nasser written by the Nobel Women's Initiative (NWI), part of the NWI's contribution to the global 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence Campaign featuring interviews with women activists about their experiences advocating for peace and women’s rights in conflict zones.

Nov. 2022 - Nobel Women's Initiative - A Yemeni human rights activist and writer who claimed political asylum in Sweden in 2011, Afrah is accustomed to freedom of movement. Here, in her native country in 2022, she faced mahram rules that forbid women’s movement without the presence or written permission of a male guardian.

“My concern about going to Yemen was that I didn’t know if my name was on a blacklist, but I realized on the ground there that my biggest problem was that I was a woman and a woman without a man, a woman without a guardian,” she said in an interview.

It was her first trip to witness the situation in Yemen firsthand since making the difficult decision to claim political asylum in Sweden in mid-2011 during the civilian uprising against the 30-year authoritarian rule of Ali Abdullah Saleh.

“I didn’t choose Sweden, it was just an accident,” she said. “I was there at a workshop during the period when the peaceful revolution started to take a different turn.” Guerrilla warfare began in the streets of her hometown, Sana’a. The airport got shut down.

As a journalist and blogger in Yemen who exposed human rights abuse and criticized the regime, Afrah had stood up to hate messages and death threats. Could she remain defiant? “My family told me you can come back but you will not write again because it’s dangerous. So, I had to make the hard decision. I couldn’t imagine life without writing.”

Since then, staying connected from abroad with an extensive network of contacts, Afrah has chronicled arbitrary detention, torture, and other human rights abuses; the steady marginalization of women; and Yemen’s descent into poverty amid civil war.

“The majority of the country is just barely surviving economic hardship,” she said. “A young Yemeni woman today has the responsibility of putting food on the table. Women are the hungriest because they prioritize the men and their children. It’s a dire humanitarian situation.”

Conflict began in March 2015 between the internationally recognized government, backed by a Saudi and UAE-led military coalition, and the Houthi movement supported by Iran. A truce in 2022 lasted only six months.

An independent writer and commentator who worked as a researcher at Human Rights Watch, Afrah has been honoured frequently with awards for her journalism and activism. “I’m thankful for the blessing of passion,” she said.

Amid accolades, she remains acutely aware of her position in a privileged elite. “I feel a huge responsibility because what I’m doing is nothing to what a lot of Yemeni women are doing inside the country.”

She said persecution of “the forgotten women of Yemen” is a function of militarism and toxic patriarchy, with the worst treatment in areas controlled by armed Houthi groups.

During the war, child marriage increased, as has violence against women. Detainees are held without charge and face torture in Houthi prisons. “Women in Yemen are not cutting their hair on camera,” she said, referring to the Iranian women’s revolution. “They are suffering in silence.”

“If I would have one message in this interview, it’s that I think there is a big moral responsibility for European and American diplomats meeting Yemeni officials,” she said. “They must ask ‘Where are the women in this room?’ ‘Why in this delegation is there no woman?’ They have a responsibility if they are truly pro-women’s rights, to confront Yemeni officials with those questions and pressure them to include half of the society.”

She recently put the spotlight on severe failures in humanitarian aid delivery in Yemen, long the poorest country in the Middle East and North Africa. “People are hungry, but they don’t even know where to register for aid that was given by the UN,” she said. “And God knows how much has gone in corruption cases.”

Among her proposals is a call for international condemnation of the Houthi restrictions on women, including female humanitarian aid workers (both Yemenis and foreigners), whom the Houthis force to have a male guardian when travelling for work inside Yemen.

Afrah posts her analyses for think tanks and publications on her blog which has been viewed more than a million times. The blog is illustrated by an Associated Press photo at Change Square in Sana’a where peaceful protesters gathered each morning near her university. “It represents the birth of my political work.”

She keeps a photo on her desk of her mentor, the pioneering Yemeni women’s rights advocate and journalist Raufa Hassan. “One time I told her ‘I want to be like you.’ And she said ‘I’m taken. Just be yourself.’ I always keep it in mind.”

That conversation is echoed in her advice for other activists. “Believe in yourself. Say and do things as if it’s the most important thing in the world. Believe that you are worth listening to. I wish someone had told me this a long time ago. Don’t wait for recognition. Have confidence in the significance of what you do.’

Afrah Nasser is a passionate advocate for the people of Yemen. She is an award-winning journalist, researcher and human rights activist who lives between Sweden and Yemen.

Women of the Revolution: A Vision for Post-war Yemen

 I co-discussed women's role in Yemen, last week, in a webinar organized by the Wilson Center.  

Yemen’s Women Confront War’s Marginalization

Women in Taiz, Yemen, commemorate the seventh anniversary of the 2011 uprising that toppled t
he country's former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, February 11, 2018. Photo by Reuters.

*Yemeni women are typically depicted either as heroic icons—such as the Arab region’s first woman Nobel Peace laureate, the journalist and peace activist Tawakkol Karman—or as suffering mothers living amid crushing poverty and violence. This limited frame excludes the everyday activism of Yemeni women who have been working for decades to expand women’s political power and shape their society, under often rapidly changing and difficult circumstances. In the context of the war that broke out in 2015 and the immense suffering it has produced, women have been war-makers and peace-makers alike. They also resist efforts to instrumentalize them for narrow political gains or to exclude them from the political processes that impact their lives.



Despite advances gained from women’s strong participation in the 2011 uprisings against the dictatorship of Yemen’s former President Ali Abdullah Salih, and despite the fact that they continue to play an essential role in the day-to-day survival of their communities, three years of war and militarization have resulted in a significant setback for Yemeni women and increased their marginalization from formal political and conflict-resolution channels. Yemeni women join others—including youth and the southern movement—who are absent from the negotiation table. Yet women are also doubly-excluded, given the gendered impact of the war and resultant humanitarian crisis. Indeed, women and girls have often borne the brunt of the collapsing social order, with its poverty, famine, disease and dislocation.

Gains and Losses

Prior to the war, Yemen consistently ranked among the least developed countries in the world. For its female population, this translated into widespread legal discrimination, illiteracy, child marriage and a high maternal mortality rate. Advances in women’s rights in modern Yemeni history, nevertheless, have far outpaced the political and economic rights of women in other parts of the Gulf, such as Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates, despite the Gulf’s far greater wealth.

The experiences of Yemeni women, however, have been shaped and limited by the top-down manner in which rights were extended: first in South Yemen in 1967 and then under North Yemen’s 1970 republican constitution. When the two states unified in 1990, universal suffrage rights and civil rights in the associational sector were extended to all, although discriminatory provisions in the constitution remained and were eventually expanded via amendment. Despite (or perhaps because of) these discriminatory provisions, women have consistently used the political and civil rights they do enjoy to contribute to Yemen’s vibrant civil society and media sectors. They also have been on the frontlines campaigning against discrimination and political marginalization.

Women’s activism has taken many forms, from the political and academic activism of feminists like Raufa Hassan and Amal al-Basha to the Islamist activism of women like Karman. As the Yemeni state eroded during the 2000s under severe economic and social pressures brought about by Yemen’s adoption of neoliberal economic policies, women became increasingly active in addressing the needs of their communities.[1] Accounts of women’s activism during this period indicate that while women felt excluded or constrained by partisan political activism, their substantive demands for political inclusion and political and economic accountability mirrored those of many opposition parties.[2]

Women’s capacity for leadership in this landscape of opposition politics crystallized with the outbreak of Yemen’s 2011 uprising, when Karman earned widespread recognition. A campaigner for press freedom, especially through her organization, Women Journalists Without Chains, Karman was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011 for her leadership in the uprising.[3]

The most significant achievement for women in the transitional period following Salih’s departure from office came in 2013, when women fought for and obtained 30 percent of the seats in the country’s National Dialogue Conference (NDC). Women’s participation shaped the content of a number of the NDC’s declarations, while they worked to secure their representation moving forward by establishing a 30 percent quota in any new government body or institution established in the country. The National Board for Monitoring the NDC’s outcomes, for example, was established with 30 percent representation for women. Women also took part in the Constitution Drafting Committee, a first for Yemeni women despite both North and South Yemen having drafted and adopted several constitutions over the past decades. Although the new draft constitution did not address all forms of gender discrimination, it represented a step toward gender equality: The draft took up issues on which women had campaigned for years, such as a ban on child marriage and measures to ensure equal access for men and women to the justice system.

Yet these advances occurred at the same moment that the political system as a whole was descending into chaos and war. From the Houthi takeover of Sanaa in September 2014 to the Saudi-led military intervention in 2015, the formal political process ground to a halt. Militarization constituted a significant loss for women’s political voice and role in decision-making. Under conditions of war, the push for women’s representation has shifted from political institutions to diplomacy, reconstruction and transitional justice.

June 2018 - Yemeni women at UN Women-led workshop about peacebuilding, held in Jordan. Photo by UN Women.

Gendered Impacts of War and Crisis

More than two thirds of Yemen’s 29 million people are currently facing what the UN calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.[4]Cholera and other infectious diseases continue to threaten millions of people amidst a collapsing health care system.[5] More than 10,000 people have been killed or wounded (according to a UN report in 2016, which surely underestimates this number), and numerous human rights organizations and UN investigators have documented various war crimes committed in the country by all warring parties.[6] By 2018, the UN Panel of Experts concluded that Yemen’s state “all but ceased to exist.”[7]

Women and children are typically the first casualties of such dire crises. The ongoing state of violence and bombing, and the blockade and siege that the Saudi-led coalition has imposed on Yemen, have had a devastating impact on maternal and children’s health. According to UNICEF, a child dies every ten minutes in Yemen because of preventable causes.[8] Millions are facing famine, yet the most alarming toll has been on women and girls of childbearing age.[9] Some estimates indicate that up to 3 million Yemeni women and girls are in acute need of humanitarian protection, with more than 1 million pregnant women suffering malnourishment.[10]Oxfam also reports an alarming rise in child marriage in Yemen, whereby “families marry off their daughters earlier to get money to pay for basic food items and at the same time reduce the daily cost of feeding the family.”[11] Child marriage compounds the risk of violence: The UN estimated that Yemeni women and girls saw an increase in gender-based violence of 63 percent in the first two years of the war.[12]

While Yemen’s tribal customs strongly condemn abducting women, the deteriorating security situation has begun to change this norm. Dozens of women have been victims of forced disappearance and unlawful detention, facing torture and mistreatment in Houthi rebel prisons.[13] As women’s lives have deteriorated, Yemen remains the lowest-ranking country in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Index, with a gender gap estimated today to be 90 percent or more.[14]

The impact of the war’s violence and social collapse on women may also be underreported, in part because of the opacity of the war itself. Death-toll numbers in Yemen are contradictory even across UN agencies, where some estimate that 10,000 people have been killed or wounded while others state that a child dies every ten minutes. The Washington Post has documented the obstacles facing the UN accounting and reporting of death tolls, strongly suggesting that UN estimates are undercounting the dead. As Kareem Fahim argues about death tolls, “It is rarely covered in the media because of restrictions and difficulties traveling there, but also because of a reticence about explaining the confounding array of actors and grievances attending a conflict in the poorest country in the Arab world.”[15]

Lise Grande, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, claims that female children in Yemen tend to be the most vulnerable and face the worst malnutrition.[16] While not counted as killed or wounded by combat, girls’ and women’s disproportionate exposure to humanitarian costs and gender-based violence must be considered a major component of the war in Yemen. It is in this context that Yemeni women are again carving out agency under unimaginable constraints, albeit not always in ways that expand (other) women’s agency.

Women in War and Peace

The war in Yemen is not something that is simply happening to Yemeni women, but rather a process in which women themselves are playing diverse roles across different regions of Yemen. In the Houthi-held capital Sanaa, for example, women have been recruited into the military. The Houthis have opened training camps for women, creating a women’s military unit known as Zeinabeyyat.[17] These female forces have been deployed to crack down against women in peaceful public protests over the past three years.[18] In the context of existing norms of gender segregation, especially in the North, these women soldiers are necessary for the detention and policing of other women and have thus been essential to Houthi rebel governance.

The southern regions of Yemen, by comparison, have not witnessed women taking up arms in the battle between the southern resistance forces and Houthi forces during or since the Houthi advance on Aden from March to July 2015. The strong presence of conservative salafi fighters in southern militias has meant that women are neither recruited nor welcome as fighters. In the frontline city of Taiz—a city in southwestern Yemen that has been under siege by Houthi forces since the war began in 2015 and is consequently perhaps the most lawless and dangerous place in Yemen[19]—women have joined a range of different resistance groups, including periodically fighting the Houthis. Reliable estimates of the number of female soldiers are hard to obtain, but military work is an attractive choice for Taizi women because few reliable sources of income exist since the Yemeni economy’s collapse. All warring parties prioritize salaries for their militants over the provision of public goods or services. Given the fact that more than a million civil servants in the Taiz region have not received their salaries for more than two years, women and men alike have joined military factions as a source of income, perpetuating the continuation of conflict.

It is a perverse irony that women have been recruited as military actors by many groups, but largely deprived of a political voice in how the conflict will end. Far from contributing to women’s political empowerment, the military recruitment of women is primarily aimed at the more efficient oppression of (other) women.

Meanwhile, women have been told during successive stages of the conflict to step aside whenever they attempted to participate politically. Women were excluded from the first peace talks in 2015, for example, leading a group of Yemeni politicians and activists to form the Women’s Pact for Peace and Security, a body endorsed by the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (also known as UN Women).[20] The Women’s Pact has not achieved significant progress for women’s political participation, as they face reluctance from the Yemeni government officials to include women members in any political or peace process.

At the grassroots level, the Mothers of Abductees Association was formed by female relatives of thousands of forcibly disappeared men in different parts of Yemen, following the model of the Argentinian Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. The Association works as a pressure group, raising awareness about the missing men and advocating for their release. Given the severe restrictions on journalists, these women have faced considerable difficulty in reaching an audience even in different parts of Yemen, let alone internationally.

Confronting Women’s Marginalization

The future of Yemen, not just the future of Yemeni women, will depend on how women—as individuals and in groups—fight for inclusion in any peace process designed to end the war. Smear campaigns against women in the media, the removal of women activists from peace talks and the undermining of the work of the Women’s Pact all suggest that Yemeni women are finding few allies, whether among Yemeni (male) political factions, foreign governments or international agencies across the (male) political spectrum. The only UN agency to offer consistent support for the Women’s Pact is UN Women, which itself plays no direct role in brokering peace.

As news spread in November 2018 that Sweden would host a new round of peace talks, the Swedish ambassador to the UN Security Council, Carl Skau, affirmed that Sweden was keen to see women participate and that Sweden would continue to support the Women’s Pact.[21] Yet when the talks took place in Stockholm in December 2018, the assistant secretary of the Yemeni Popular Nasserist Party, Rana Ghanem, was the only female member of any delegation. Research on women’s involvement with political parties in Yemen suggests that women’s exclusion is not a function of party ideology, as secular and Leftist parties rarely commit resources to the gender equality they espouse.

Indeed, during the past three rounds of peace talks, only three women have sat at the negotiation table.[22] “One of the reasons why I was able to be in the negotiations was my leading position in the Nasserist Party,” explains Ghanem, who has been involved with the Nasserist Party since 1991. “Yemeni political parties’ leadership has always been occupied by men and that has reflected itself in the lack of female representation in all these peace talks…This should not be an excuse, though, and the Yemeni government has to fulfil its promise of the 30 percent quota for women.” Ghanem argues that this commitment should be on coequal standing with the implementation of the NDC outcomes and UN Security Council Resolution 2216 as conditions for any agreement.[23]

Some sources of support for Yemeni women’s political activism do exist. The UN Special Envoy for Yemen Martin Griffiths (along with his predecessors, Jamal Ben Omar and Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed) has ensured women’s political participation in peacebuilding processes through creative ways, in order to apply UN Security Council Resolution 1325.[24] Women have worked closely with Griffiths’ team in a variety of advisory groups during the four rounds of Yemen peace talks in Kuwait, Geneva and Stockholm.

In the recent Stockholm peace talks, women members participated in three groups. Two groups were supported by the UN envoy’s office: the Women’s Technical Advisory Group comprising eight Yemeni women,[25] the Political Advisory Group consisting of three men and two women and the Women’s Pact for Peace and Security supported by UN Women. “All these groups have compensated for the lack of women’s political participation, as the warring parties refuse to include sufficient female representation at the negotiation table,” says one female member speaking on condition of anonymity. “Some in both parties make the excuse that the UNSC resolution 2216 didn’t mention women representation in the negotiation process, some think it’s still not the right time to include women at this stage of the conflict resolution process and some simply think that women are less competent in leadership.”

The setting of the 2018 Stockholm peace talks enabled these women’s groups to access and engage with the warring parties’ delegations. Jamila Raja, a Yemeni diplomat and a member of the Political Advisory Group, believes that the opportunity made her more knowledgeable than ever of the two sides’ needs and fears, and it gave her a sense of where to direct her influence. “Our work in the group focused on thinking of ways to find common ground between the parties, which was a challenging task. We weren’t at the negotiation table, but we managed to work on agreement proposals.”

Najat Joma’an, a professor of Management and Finance at Sanaa University and a member of the Women’s Pact, argues that much more needs to be done. “These groups are a good step, but we need an effective women’s political participation [process] and both parties have to be pressured to include women in their delegations.” Ghanem suggests that one way to do so is to compel inclusion of women members in these peace talks. “I think the UN Special Envoy could play a different role in his gender representation approach than how things look like right now,” explains Ghanem. “While each party is asked to bring 12 members, I think Griffiths could increase the number of members and ask the parties to bring, say, 16 or 17 members, and dedicate these new seats for women only, and if a party fails to bring the women, the seats shall remain empty.”

A stronger political will from the warring parties and the international community to address the political marginalization of women is necessary for increasing women’s political representation in Yemen’s conflict resolution process. Meanwhile, Yemeni women from all sides of the political spectrum keep playing a central role, within the available space. One lesson from the long history of women’s engagement and activism is that women will not sit by and passively wait to be invited in.

_______________________________________

*This essay was first written for and published in the 'Middle East Research and Information Project' magazine, end 2018. 

Yemen’s Women Confront War’s Marginalization

Despite advances gained from women’s strong participation in the 2011 uprisings against the dictatorship of Yemen’s former President Ali Abdullah Salih, and despite the fact that they continue to play an essential role in the day-to-day survival of their communities, three years of war and militarization have resulted in a significant setback for Yemeni women and increased their marginalization from formal political and conflict-resolution channels. Yet they continue to struggle for their rights and representation.


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Yemeni Women: Making the Most of the Space Available

(C) Reuters: Sana'a, 2011. 

During my early childhood in Sana’a, in the 1990s, the idea of gender equality was confusing to me. On the one hand, my mother was teaching me how women must fight for their rights. On the other hand, outside of the home, concepts like “gender equality” or “feminism” were portrayed in a negative light. I recall that, in secondary school, our female teacher told our class how “equality” between the sexes was a notion manufactured by the West to destroy Arab and Muslim communities. I also recall how my religious neighbour urged me to accompany her to a women-only Quran study group in the nearby mosque. We would go and listen to a sheikha (female religious leader) explaining how “gender equality” and “feminism” were against Islam, and how Allah wanted men and women to have different and unequal roles and responsibilities.

Raufa Hassan. 

When I started college, however, I became exposed to a different kind of discourse about women’s rights. Both the independent press and events about women’s rights, organised by pro-democracy local civil society organizations (CSOs), opened my eyes to Yemen’s feminist women. Women’s rights advocates in political positions or leading CSOs, such as Radhya Shamsheer, Amat al-Alim Alsoswa, Raufa Hassan, or Amal Basha, speaking eloquently about women’s activism in Yemen, have all been crucial in shaping my feminist consciousness. They were working on issues like child marriage, gender-based violence, discriminatory laws, and women’s political participation, among many other things.


The word feminism, though, was not always explicitly used because it was dangerous and antagonising.

For instance, in 1999, leading feminist figure Raufa Hassan was subjected to an aggressive religious attack over her work and was eventually forced to leave the country. The anti-feminist backlash from some influential religious members of parliament and conservative clerics compelled most feminists to adopt a more pragmatic approach to their activism and to use less antagonising labels, such as women’s empowerment advocates. Only a handful would fearlessly continue to call themselves feminists. They were all involved in the same feminist struggle, to be sure.

Yemen’s modern history has never seen a coherent and consistent women’s movement, but rather temporary and fragmented movements with different priorities, such as women’s struggle against human rights violations, and feminists’ focus on combating patriarchal tribal structures that discriminated against women. They all stemmed from genuine concerns for human rights and democracy.

In the country’s modern history, three major events have influenced these struggles and women’s political rights: 1) the unification of North and South Yemen in 1990, 2) Yemen’s uprising in 2011, and 3) the war that has been ongoing since 2015.

When the two Yemeni states unified in 1990, a reform of the family law took place that was considered an advancement for Northern and a setback for Southern women, as the South had already introduced more progressive women’s rights than the North, for instance, legal equality in family affairs.

Then, in the wake of the 2011 uprising, women fought hard for greater and more effective political participation, eventually achieving an unprecedented 30 per cent quota for women in Parliament.


Women also took part in the Constitution Drafting Committee for the first time in the State’s history.



WHERE WOMEN’S POLITICAL RIGHTS STAND TODAY


Yet, today, all these advancements in the name of women’s rights have been eroded. As the four-year-long war rages on, the political system as a whole has descended into chaos and the push for women’s representation has shifted from political institutions to diplomacy and advocacy.

During the time from the Houthis’ takeover of Sana’a in September 2014 to the Saudi-led military intervention in 2015, the formal political process has ground to a halt. Militarisation has meant a significant loss for women’s political voice and role in decision-making. In fact, the discussion of women’s political rights in Yemen right now, in its current apocalyptic state, seems an extravagant thought.

The conflict has made Yemen the site of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Millions of lives are threatened by famine, but the heaviest toll is taken on women and girls of childbearing age. Females are facing a rise in child marriages and a 63 per cent increase in violence against them. With dozens of women detainees held in Houthi rebel prisons, facing torture and abuse, the conflict has destroyed some of the tribal safeguards that protected women from abduction or imprisonment. In Taiz, women activists are a target of Houthi bullets. Across many cities, women agonise over their missing male relatives and are barely able to feed their starving children.

What I lament the most is that pre-war Yemen, with all its institutional injustices against women, had nevertheless overtaken Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in its advancement of women’s rights – progress that today is basically undone. Over the course of the Yemeni war, women in Saudi Arabia and the UAE have witnessed some positive developments, such as the lifting of the driving ban in Saudi Arabia and an increase in women’s political representation in the UAE, while Yemenis are facing the decline of their rights and freedoms. This is a very important comparison as the disastrous bombing of Yemen is carried out by no other than its neighbours: Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Independent press and CSOs have disappeared as a venue to raise awareness about women’s empowerment. Journalists, activists and aid workers have been harassed, attacked, and/or made to disappear by all warring parties. The space for civil action has shrunk drastically. Voices that dare to speak out in support of women’s rights are effectively being silenced.

WOMEN ARE FIGHTING BACK

Yemen Peace talks in Kuwait, 2016.

Meanwhile, women are pushing back. At the grassroots level, with some 12,000 men arrested and more than 3,000 forcibly disappeared, mothers, sisters, and daughters of those abducted have begun to gather in front of the central prison or police stations across major Yemeni cities in search of their sons, fathers, or brothers. They have organised themselves as a collective named “Mothers of Abductees Association.” At the political level, UN Women has supported the establishment of the Yemeni Women’s Pact for Peace and Security, which calls for women’s inclusion in the political dialogue and peace process.

In addition, Yemeni women’s political activism has been supported by the three UN Special Envoys for Yemen, Jamal Ben Omar, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, and currently Martin Griffiths, over the past eight years. In accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 1325 – on the full involvement and equal participation of women in conflict resolution processes – Griffiths has ensured the presence of women in the Yemeni peace talks in Kuwait, Geneva, and Stockholm through consultancy groups.

WOMEN’S FUTURE


Even though Yemen has not witnessed a strong women’s movement in recent history, women have become an important pillar in the formation of a new democratic Yemen since the 2011 uprising. Their activism under the difficult circumstance of continuing conflict has played an important role in shedding light on gross human rights violations and in peace advocacy. The future of Yemeni women depends on the future of Yemen. Women activists will therefore not rest until the country is back on its feet and peace prevails. Within the space available to them, Yemeni women are looking to achieve something that is worth the world’s solidarity.

_____________________________________________________

*This article was written for and first published in Goethe Institute's website, on April 2019. 

Houthis Ban Women Travel without Guardianship

@Reuters 

Women in Sana'a are reportedly banned from travelling without males' guardianship across Houthi-controlled areas. The decision was issued by Houthis, last month, according to journalist Fatima al-Aghbari. Fatima knew about the issue when she tried to book herself a bus ticket to travel from Sana'a to Aden. She was not allowed to book the ticket unless her brother booked it for her. I wrote this piece for Daraj in Arabic about the issue.

Yemen: Women, War & Political Marginalization

When Yemen’s last peace talks in Stockholm took place in December 2018, only one female delegate was at the negotiation table. Assistant Secretary of the Yemeni Popular Nasserist Party, Rana Ghanem was the only female member, in the Yemeni government delegation. Over the past three Yemen peace talks, only three women have sat at the negotiation table. “One of the reasons why I was able to be in the negotiations was my leading position in the Nasserist Party,” explains Ghanem who has been involved with the Nasserist Party since 1991.

Among many political losses—from Yemen’s National Dialogue Conference’ (NDC) and the Houthis’ takeover of Sana’a in mid-2014—was the loss of women’s political power. At the time, Women secured thirty percent representation in the NDC and took part in the Constitution Drafting Committee, for the first time in Yemen’s history ensuring a thirty percent in any future committee formation.

Yet today, in the conflict resolution process, Yemeni women are almost without any political power at all. Yemeni women today face the same marginalization of other groups such as the youth and southern secessionist movement who are also absent from the negotiation table. Women, however, are doubly excluded as they face gender-based marginalization.

“Yemeni political parties’ leadership has always been occupied by men and that has reflected itself in the lack of female representation in all these peace talks,” notes Ghanem. “This should not be an excuse though, and the Yemeni government has to fulfil its promise of the thirty percent quota for women; which is part of the three references (implementation of the GCC Initiative’s mechanism, the NDC’s outcomes and Security Council Resolution 2216) and conditions for peace.”

Before the war, Yemen was consistently ranked as one of the least developedcountries in the world. In terms of its female population, this translated into legal discrimination, illiteracy, child marriage, and a high maternal mortality rate. Former Yemeni president, Ali Abdullah Saleh’s decreed a fifteen percent women quota in 2006; yet only two of 301 members of parliament were female instead of forty-five.

The conflict today has made Yemen the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Looming widespread famine threatens everyone in Yemen and, women and girls tend to be the most vulnerable. The war has led to a rise in child marriageand to a sixty-three percent increase in violence against women. Dozens of women detainees are held without charges and face torture and mistreatment in Houthi rebel prisons. For more than a decade, Yemen has been the lowest-ranking country in the Global Gender Index, with a gender gap estimated today to be ninety percent or more.

Nonetheless, Yemeni women’s political activism has continued and received the support of the international community. The UN Special Envoy for Yemen, Martin Griffiths (and his predecessors, Jamal Ben Omar and Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed) have ensured women’s political participation in peacebuilding processes through creative ways, in order to apply "UN Security Council resolution 1325." Over the four rounds of Yemen peace talks in Kuwait, Geneva, and Stockholm; women have worked closely with Griffiths’ team in a variety of advisory groups.

As I attended and covered the recent Stockholm peace talks, I met those women members who participated in three groups. Two groups were supported by the UN envoy’s office: 1) “Women’s Technical Advisory Group” comprising eight Yemeni women, 2) “Political Advisory Group” consisting of three men and two women and 3) “Women’s Pact for Peace and Security” group that’s supported by UN Women. Membership in these groups has changed over time.

“All these groups have compensated for the lack of women’s political participation, as the warring parties refuse to include sufficient female representation at the negotiation table,” says one female member speaking on condition of anonymity. “Some in both parties make the excuse that the UNSC 2216 resolution didn’t mention women representation in the negotiation process, some think it’s still not the right time to include women at this stage of the conflict resolution process, and some simply think that women are less competent in leadership.”

The setting of the recent Stockholm peace talks has given these women groups better access to engage with the two warring parties’ delegations. Jamila Raja, Yemeni diplomat and a member of the Political Advisory Group believes that this opportunity has made her more knowledgeable than ever of the two sides’ needs and fears, and given her a sense of her influence. “Our work in the group focused on thinking of ways to find common ground between the parties; which was a challenging task. We weren’t at the negotiation table, but we managed to work on agreement proposals.”

More, however, needs to be done, says Dr. Najat Joma’an, Professor of Management and Finance at Sana'a University, and a member of the “Women’s Pact for Peace and Security” group. “These groups are a good step, but we need an effective women’s political participation [process] and both parties have to be pressured to include women in their delegations.”

A creative way to do so suggested by Ghanem is to induct women members in these peace talks. “I think the UN Special Envoy could play a different role in his gender representation approach than how things look like right now,” explains Ghanem. “While each party is asked to bring twelve members, I think Griffiths could increase the number of members and ask the parties to bring; say, sixteen or seventeen members, and dedicate these new seats for women only, and if a party fails to bring the women, the seats shall remain empty.”

A political will from the warring parties and the international community to address the political marginalization of women is key for increasing women’s political representations in Yemen’s conflict resolution process. Meanwhile, it is important that Yemeni women from all sides of the political spectrum keep playing a central role, within the available space.

_____________________________________________________

This article was orginally published in The Atlantic Council's website here. 

In Yemen, women bear the brunt of a merciless war

Women in #Yemen are celebrating #IWD2018 spending days &
nights at the gas stations queues! via
@@SayaghiX

*While women around the world are today celebrating International Women's Day (IWD), Yemen's women hope simply that it will throw a spotlight on the unspeakable human suffering all genders are enduring across the country.

In fact, to celebrate women's rights today, in an apocalyptic situation like the one in Yemen, seems an extravagant thought. On the ground, women queue for hours in Sanaa to buy gas amid a fuel shortage, and in Taiz, women activists are a target of Houthi bullets. In Aden, women agonise over their missing male relatives, and in Hodeidah they are barely able to feed their starving little children.

Looking back, seven years ago, I wrote from Sanaa's focal point of the protests, dubbed "Change Square", on how women contributed to the anti-Saleh protests, celebrating IWD along with women across the world.

On that day, the women's protest was, to a large extent a political expression, reaffirming their political role in the uprising, and was not a specifically feminist expression.

Different political and anti-Saleh parties used women that day as a decorative tool to serve the parties' political agendas. However, many of the non-partisan and politically independent women, as I was myself, believed that bringing about a drastic political change would benefit women's rights in one way or another.

However, little did we know how the tide would turn, and how the brutal civil war to come would lead women to become this vulnerable.

Yemen has been ravaged by a vicious cycle of violence since mid-2014, impacting everyone, regardless of social class or gender, but the problems women, in particular, are facing continue to accumulate.

When I began working as a reporter at the Yemen Observer in Sanaa in 2008, I was assigned the women's issues beat. I was reporting on the high maternal mortality rate in the country, the epidemic of child marriage and the battle to legally ban it and violence against women.

The more I reported, the more I realised that - contrary to the stereotypes - the tribal culture in Yemen sees women as the backbone of the family and community across the country. That culture ensures their fair treatment.

Nonetheless, following Yemen's 1990 failed unification between the north and south, and the interference of political religious powers in the nation-building process, these factors have put women's rights at a disadvantage.

Women's biggest problems used to be the institutionalised gender discrimination and socioeconomic hardships as a result of Yemen's longstanding poor governance.

Today, however, their biggest problem is war. As Yemen has been ravaged by famine, cholera and bombardment, yesterday's problems seem like the good old days.

Nevertheless, most concerning to me is the vanishing state of justice in Yemen.

One UN report details how Yemen as a state has dissolved.

In Yemen before the war, in that relatively peaceful and stable country, gender equality was at the heart of the women's rights struggle.

Back then, Yemen's personal status law contained provisions that discriminate against women in relation to marriage, divorce, custody of children, and inheritance.

Today, in war-torn Yemen, the conflict has led the entire judicial system to collapse. There is no one solid, functioning judicial system in Yemen today. The country is on the verge of partition between north and south, and there is no coherent functioning judicial system ruling over both parts.

The Houthis in the north have forcefully and illegally controlled the judicial system and are committing serious human rights violations. Asmaa al-Omeissy, for example, was sentenced to death on charges of "terrorism". Meanwhile, in the south, extrajudicial killings have tragically become the norm in a climate of armed militiamen, with no justice ever being served to its victims.

In this grim situation, the country's women are one of the most neglected political groups. While they bear the brunt of the war, many are still manging political activism that needs our solidarity.

The "Mothers of Abductees Association", is doing great work, raising their voice against oppression and injustice. And to enhance Yemeni women's political representation in any potential peace talks, a group of Yemeni women under the name "Yemeni Women Peace Pact" supported by UN Women has been working since 2015 to enforce women's inclusion in peace talks.

With the recent appointment of a new UN special envoy Martin Griffiths, there's hope that international peace efforts in Yemen will take on a gender perspective, a demand Yemeni women peace activists outline in a letter to be sent to Griffiths today.

________________________________________________________

*This article was writtern for and firstly published on The New Arab website, March 8th 2018. 

Caught on video: 'Like asking if you’ll stop beating your wife’, Saudi ambassador dodges Yemen cluster bomb question

Saudi’s ambassador to US, Al-Saud tells us how misogyny is the mother's milk of militarism.

Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States, Prince Abdullah Al-Saud was asked, “will you continue to use cluster weapons in Yemen?” “This is like the question, ‘Will you stop beating your wife?’” Al-Saud responded, letting loose a bellowing laugh.

More lengthy video of the brave The Intercept reporters’ Zaid Jilani & Alex Emmons debate with Al-Saud can be watched below:

And Zaid Jilani & Alex Emmons' report on The intercept can be read here: https://goo.gl/qc2TVq 

For lasting peace in Yemen, bring women to the table

"...Currently, Yemen is going through a third round of peace talks. Women’s voices have been absent from the peace talks so far. This unfairness threatens the sustainability of any deal that may be reached, and women are worried that any peace deal will be centred on a power-sharing formula instead of a socially responsible resolution leading to reparation for victims and affected communities. Now, once again, we are pushing for the inclusion of women. We will not stop our peaceful campaigns until our voices are heard and until our rights are implemented," writes the tireless magnificent Rasha Jarhum via LSE Middle East Centre. For full article, check here.

Women’s access to the Yemen peace talks

"The latest round of peace talks between the Yemeni government and Houthi rebels is slated to begin in Geneva next week. The two parties will negotiate a cease-fire agreement to end the recent nine-month conflict that has devastated the Gulf state—one of the world’s most impoverished and worst scoring countries in terms of gender equality, even before the Houthi insurgency broke out last March. Each delegation will consist of 12 members. A week from the start of negotiations, however, delegations have yet to be finalized, in part because the UN has insisted that women be added to the presently all-male delegations. Houthi officials barred Dr. Shafiqa al-Wahsh, a prominent Yemeni women’s rights leader, from traveling to preparatory meetings. Al-Wahsh is just one of many women’s advocates trying to make inroads to the peace talks: in October, 45 women representing different political parties and ethno-religious factions met with the UN Special Envoy to Yemen for a workshop on the effect the war is having on women and to discuss avenues for women’s participation in formal peacebuilding processes." -blogs.cfr.org

Notes: Low Female Political Participation in Geneva's Peace Talks

Only one woman participant in Geneva's peace talks. She's a representative from the GPC. Why not have equal gender participation! #yemen

— Afrah Nasser (@Afrahnasser) June 15, 2015

Yemeni women hv been affected by the bloody war as much as all men hb; then, thr should be no reason 2 marginalise them in the peace talks.

— Afrah Nasser (@Afrahnasser) June 15, 2015

Keep on excluding women, "half" of the society, and you'll end up with "half" peace, idiot patriarchal male politicians! #yemen

— Afrah Nasser (@Afrahnasser) June 15, 2015

If we marginalize women jst coz they're being used 4 docrative reasons, then,1. get th competent ones! 2. get ride of the decrotive males 2!

— Afrah Nasser (@Afrahnasser) June 15, 2015

Not extravagant topic 2 discuss th importance of women's equal participation in Geneva's talks; it's abt having sustainable peace! #yemen

— Afrah Nasser (@Afrahnasser) June 15, 2015 

Fail Better, Yemeni Women!

Photograph: Abdulrahman Jaber

It’s no longer Spring in Yemen. The consecutive upheavals have been nothing but stormy for all. Yemen is stuck in a vicious circle of failures. My generation has had to live with periodical armed conflicts and is trying to deal with the trauma. The trauma impacting women is especially complex because women suffer not only from everyday human rights violations but also gender-based violence and discrimination.

Photographs: Bushra Al-Fusail

For Yemen — the country ranked absolutely worst in the Global Gender Gap reportevery year since 2006 – the old imperfect reality for women might be considered the old good days.

Today’s reality is quite possibly the bleakest.

The latest upheaval is Houthi takeover of most of Yemen’s large cities. This has created an extreme sense of insecurity, fear and economic frustration. President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi hardly protected himself from the Houthi’s aggression, let alone ordinary citizens. Unquestionably, a critical implication of the Houthi’s new imposed social order is that all human rights are under threat in the cities controlled by them. Women’s rights are particularly endangered, unless Yemeni women reorganize with a clear (Islamic/secular) feminist conscious.

Dr. Raufa
Hassan. Photograph:
Abdulrahman Al-Ghabri

The F word, feminism, is taboo in Yemen. So is the word equality. And it’s really time to change that. I grew up being taught in primary school that equality was not in keeping with our culture and society; hence we must not discuss it. At mosques in the main Yemeni cities, brochures are distributed warning how equality is a sinful concept. As an adult, I was introduced to the concept of equality by local female pioneers such as Amal Basha and the late Dr. Raufa Hassan during seminars hosted by their organizations in Sana’a. I also realized how discussing gender equality was inconvenient for many. To talk about women’s rights, whether in times of stability or crisis, is considered irrelevant not only to anti-feminist groups, but also to those who consider themselves progressive leftist groups. I am certain that this essay won’t be attractive to many.

Yet women were the ones leading the uprising in 2011. Nobel laureate Tawakkol Karman is the most well-known example. The uprising represented an opportunity for female opinion leaders, activists, writers and intellectuals to challenge the social construction that was boxing them in and demeaning them.

After being threatened to be stripped off by Al Houthi men, Yemeni Female College Student Speaks Out

Heba Al-Thabhani, a college student at Sana'a University started a storm of resistance to Al Houthis' hegemony of the university's campus since she was assaulted and threatened to be stripped off by Al Houthi men, on the 2nd of December. 

The current typical dress code for women in most of Yemen's big cities, including Sana'a is to wear a long black dress with long sleeve, usually called "Baltoh" (like a maxi dress) that covers the entire body. There are a handful of women who don't wear the Baltoh. And Heba decided to join the exception by wearing a modest jacket along with a trouser. Then, as she was going to her university, her unusual appearance provoked Al Houthi armed men who have been occupying the campus in the wake of their takeover of Sana'a city, on 21st September (an update!). Heba was interrogated by the armed men and asked to abide to the typical dress code for females in the city. As she refused to be submissive, she was threatened to be stripped off her trouser. It's not certain if they would have really done so, but it's certain that they wanted to scare her and terrorize her. Al Houthi are religiously strict group and Heba's dress definitely doesn't go in accordance with their religious considerations.  

Heba refused to be scared and she decided to speak out following that incident. Once she spoke out, her story took local press and social media networks in the country by storm. More importantly, her issue grabbed massive students' movement inside the university's campus, in solidarity with her and in protest against the Houthis' armed occupation of the campus.

'Despite the danger and threats women human rights defenders face, we should be proud of the work we are doing,' Atiaf Al Wazir

Yemeni researcher and writer, Atiaf Al Wazir participated in an interactive web forum along with other women human rights activists from Egypt and Libya, organized by The Front Line Defenders organization, where Atiaf discussed the situation of human rights (and women's rights in particular) in Yemen. You may watch the video here.

Domestic Violence: Yemeni Women's Silent Killer

Photo/ Bushra Al Fusail.

While Yemen's political and security landscape is boiling, little attention is given to women's status in the country. Although Yemeni women had an active role in Yemen's National Dialogue Conference (Mar. 18, 2013 – Jan. 24, 2014), there has been zero progress in legislations to protect women's rights. The greatest danger for women in Yemen is enduring the systemic discrimination and violence which have devastating consequences on their lives. Violence against women is common in Yemen, perpetrated by the state, the community and the family. 

Yesterday, "a 16-years old boy attempted to behead his 20-years old sister while she was asleep in their house in Khor Makser in Aden city. The girl's been in severe condition when she arrived to the hospital as she was also stabbed in different places in her body. The mother and another sister tried to rescue the girl once they heard her scream, and they rushed her to the hospital immediately. The girl is in a critical condition and is placed in a medically induced coma1."

Additionally, there was a report of another domestic crime committed against a wife in Yemen's eastern; "a husband beheaded his wife for unidentified reasons in Foa neighborhood in Mukala city. Reportedly, the husband has escaped and has not been captured yet2."

There are no specific laws protecting women in Yemen from violence. The Penal Law criminalizes physical harm, but does not mention domestic violence or violence against women, and does not cover psychological harm. 

Social norms in Yemen allow a culture where men, hitting their wives, daughters and sisters is regarded as an acceptable manner. That culture is nurtured with the failure of laws to explicitly condemn domestic violence and other forms of violence against women. Therefore, it's absolutely crucial that there is a political will to address the problem, with an up-to-down approach.

“According to a National Women’s Committee (NWC) study, only 5% of women who were the victims of domestic violence proceeded to report the incidents to the police. This can be attributed to several factors. To begin with, very few Yemeni women are fully aware of their rights; meanwhile, even less are familiar with what can be fairly considered domestic violence. Complicating the matter, various forms of verbal and physical abuse, as well as restrictions on freedom, are regarded as aspects of Yemen’s cultural heritage and customs3.”

While Yemen's new Constitution is a work in progress by the Constitution Drafting Committee 4, the committee's members and the government must exert effective measurement in addressing violence against women in the country. Otherwise, domestic violence would continue to be a silent killer for many women across the country.

______________________________________________________________________

1http://adenalghad.net/news/127036/#.VDo7atTLdRp

2http://mukallastar.com/news/2014/179479.html

3http://nationalyemen.com/2013/02/24/the-reality-of-domestic-abuse-in-yemen/

4https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/friends-of-yemen-steering-committe-report

Yemeni women fight for greater representation

Despite a precarious 30 percent quota for women in government, Yemeni activists say women's rights have been sidelined.

After years of activism, Amal Basha's demands for guarantees of greater representation for women in the political system has finally edged closer to reality.

"Women have been fighting for it for a long time," said the prominent Yemeni human rights advocate, referring to the more than decade-long battle she and others have waged to secure women representation in public office in Yemen.

In the aftermath of the country's 2011 uprising, and over the course of the nation's 10-month National Dialogue Conference (NDC), Basha and other pro-quota NDC delegates were able to secure the endorsement of an article for the nation's new constitution - planned to be ratified later this year -recommending that at least 30 percent of those serving in government should be women.

This quota, proponents have argued, could rectify Yemen's poor track record of female representation in politics and potentially chip away at negative stigmas of women holding positions of power. Read more>>

Yemeni girl, 12, escapes her 55-year old abusive husband

Enough already & let's ban child marriage! - #Yemen'i girl, 12, escapes her 55-yr old abusive husband in #Taiz http://t.co/XFMZj9Pi80
— Afrah نasser (@Afrahnasser) August 17, 2014

World Bank: New Report on Yemeni Women's Status

"The report presents: i) a fresh look at available survey data on human development and socio-economic indicators in the country; ii) a brief history and in-depth analysis of the most critical legal barriers to women's and girl's full participation in Yemeni society; and iii) insights from a rich qualitative dataset collected in January 2011." -The World Bank