Yemeni Women Speak About Violence
Sana’a, NewsYemenIn a women session organized in Sana’a on Thursday by the Arab Sisters Forum for Human Rights (ASF) under the slogan “Activists Against Organized Violence”, Yemeni females have narrated their experiences with different forms of violence.
The researcher and author Arwa Othman, head of the Popular Heritage House, talked about violence of authorities, some sheikhs and people who mistreated her in the past. She said some people used to despise her for her unveiled face and because she shows some of her head hair.
Once, a 4-year girl told me “my sister in Islam veil your face”, said Arwa.
Othman also talked about her failed marriage experience and how some people used it a justification to abuse her. “No day passed without tears on my pillow,” said Othman. She said that her writings in opposition papers caused severe violence against her even by intellectuals as she called president Saleh, who was at that time touring the Arab countries to activate the Arab reform initiative, to start internal reform first.
“Violence of street is the most dangerous one that women face in Yemen, said Othman. “A madman once shouted at me to wear veil.”
She said that she also faced “electronic violence” as she received emails from Yemenis and Arabs attacking her. “They said that I was against Islam and veil,” she said.
Hanan al-Wadei, an employee in a Sweden organization near the Iranian embassy in Sana’a, narrated her story with the political security that arrested her days ago charging her of contacts with the Iranian embassy.
She confirmed that she has not any political interests, but she strongly blamed those people who stood watching “kidnappers” who drew her out of her car claiming they belong to political security and that they had orders to bring her, without any proof document.
Al-Wadei said she was taken by force to the Political Security Prison for no rational reason only for security claims that she had visited the Iranian embassy. “What is amazing is that the claims were denied by kidnappers themselves,” said al-Wadei, appealing to president Saleh to investigate her kidnapping.
The speakers in the meeting agreed that family violence is the first to be faced by women. Huda al-Attas, member of the Yemeni Intellectuals and Writers Union, described how her father wanted her to marry as she was still 12 years and then how she was assaulted by mosques’ preachers for writing an article in which she called “angels to play with children”.
Chairwoman of the Yemeni Female Journalists Without Chains, Tawakol Karman, said she could not find herself offended in “an offended country in general”. “ I have received many critical messages about alleged relations with American and about my parent’s remorse to get a girl like me” said Karman. “But many Yemeni men face more violence than women.”
She also reported the difficulties she faced when she tried to establish her organization. “An official in the Ministry of Information told me ‘we will not give you the permission just because you are Tawakol,” she said.
Head of the ASF, Amal Basha, said that some newspapers described her as “ woman of bad reputation, bad color and bad smell.”
She said that she suffered a lot since she started her education in Cairo in 1985. She criticized the anti-woman behavior of the Yemeni security organization.
