Armies of Liberation

A great article in The National dealing with enormous obstacles for disabled in Yemen.

There are no accurate figures for the number of disabled people in Yemen, or on their demographic breakdown, but the government has estimated that there were about 380,000 in 2004, a figure rights groups say is grossly underestimated.

In a conservative society such as Yemen, where women have few rights, being physically disabled is doubly difficult, said Jamalah al Baidani, the Challenge Society director. “People look at disabled women as useless and a heavy burden on their family. Some families force their disabled daughters to beg, or sell wheelchairs or hearing aids to other disabled people; some even take the money their children earn.”

Ms Baidani said lack of awareness is the main reason why society is so intolerant of people with disabilities and that removing the social stigma would take a greater contribution from the government and media.

(Read on …)

Yemen Observer:

However mature and well-educated they may be, women in Yemen still do not enjoy equality status with men. This is largely due to social traditions that still regard women as minors needing help and support, said a paper on women and tribal traditions in Yemen.

Women’s roles largely remain confined to giving birth, raising children and caring for the home and family, said the paper which was presented by researcher Dr. Afaf Al Haimi in a symposium held in Sana’a this week on the political role of tribes in Yemen, Jordan and Iraq.

“Education for women is not regarded as essential, especially in rural areas where women generally work about 16 hours per day on farms, in houses and gathering water,” said Al Haimi.

The rate of illiteracy among women in rural areas is as high as 75.7 percent and 40.5 percent in the urban areas, she said.

The gap between male and female education is 76 girls for every 100 boys, but in the high classes the number of girl’s decreases. At this level, there are only 44 female students for every 100 male students, she said.

The researcher also noted that there is a high drop out rate for girls at nearly every level of education. Girls generally drop out of schools because of early marriage, and because the prevailing culture does not stress female education. Also, housework, especially in rural areas and family traditions, often prevent women from leaving the home, the researcher said.

In government institutions, the researcher said, the number of female employees is around 90,464 compared to 440,061 men.

The researcher also criticized Yemen’s educational curriculum, saying it discriminates against women by focusing solely on what are typically regarded as male virtues- heroism and success, and it stresses the power of men.

She said the country’s political parties do nothing to help women. These parties are strongly affected by the country’s tribal culture which looks at women as inferior, the researcher concluded.

Yemen Times

(IRIN) - Hundreds of families (totalling about 2,000 people) in the southern governorate of Abyan have begun to leave their homes due to severe drought in their mountain villages, a senior official has said.

Sirar District, a mountainous area in Abyan, has been particularly badly affected since May.

Al-Khader Mohammed Saleh, director-general of Sirar District, told IRIN that over 300 families had left their villages over the past week as a result of the drought.

(Read on …)

Yemen Post

Head of the Saudi medical mission Dr. Huaida Al-Kathami, currently visiting Yemen, said that relative marriage in Yemen attributes greatly to heart congenital defects among children in Yemen.

In a press conference, Chief of the Cordial Surgery Department at Prince Sultan’s Hospital, Dr. Al-Kathami warned of the dangerous signs of heart defects among children in Yemen, calling on Yemenis to stop relative marriages before matters get worse.

(Read on …)

IRIN

SANAA, 14 August 2008 (IRIN) - Water availability in Yemen has been worsening by the year and the government has no clear strategy on how to deal with the problem, experts have said.

They say water shortages, which affect about 80 percent of the country’s 21 million people, are exacerbated by the high fertility rate, rapid urbanisation, the cultivation of `qat’ (a mild narcotic), a lack of public awareness, and the arbitrary digging of wells.

The experts made the remarks at a symposium on 12 August in Sanaa city organised by the Sheba Centre for Strategic Studies (SCSS), a local think-tank. Entitled Water Security in Yemen: Challenges and Solutions, the symposium brought together dozens of local officials and experts on water.

Khalil al-Maqtari, an official at the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation and an expert of topography, said the water situation was worsening as there was no effective strategy to manage its use.

(Read on …)

Of all the marginalized groups in Yemen, none is more so then black Yemenis who are called akhdam, which means servants, seriously. The Akdam are thought to be of Ethiopian descent and have been in Yemen for centuries, yet to achieve integration or equality. The racial discrimination is so dramatic and engrained its hardly noticed. The reason they work as street sweepers is no one will hire them for anything else. Children are excluded from public schools. They are a sub-caste of society.

IRIN: SANAA, 21 July 2008 (IRIN) - Police moved into a slum area of Sanaa city on 20 July to try to evict several hundred impoverished people who had moved into the area saying they could not longer afford to pay rent.

Police used a tractor to demolish about 10 tin shacks, according to Saad Ahmed Salem, a slum leader, but did not succeed in evicting any of the roughly 200 families in the slum.

(Read on …)

Yemen Observer

Qat chewers are on a steady rise in Yemen, especially amongst young people, where qat chewers constitute 70 percent of men and more than 30 percent of women, said Mansour al-Hawshabi, Minister of Agriculture and Irrigation.

Al-Hawshabi reported this rise during the opening of a workshop on policies for qat in Yemen, which took place in Sana’a on Sunday. “Qat occupies large areas of agricultural land at the expense of many crops, particularly important cereals,” he said.

The prevalence of qat is considered a significant obstacle to lifting the productivity of other crops. Qat plantations are expanding by 4-6 thousand hectares annually, which demand more than 30 percent of the total water resources allocated to agriculture.

Various surveys and studies show that 85 percent of qat cultivation is concentrated in five governorates: Amran, Dhamar, Sana’a, Hajja and Ibb. “Qat does not just pose agricultural and environmental problems, but it is a significant risk to the health of people especially when using pesticides indiscriminately,” said al-Hawshabi.

Qat has become a dilemma facing the expansion of food crops to provide food security, said Abdul-Karim al-Arhabi, Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs and Minister of Planning and International Cooperation. “It is draining more than 30 percent of the water devoted to agriculture.”

“The spending on qat plants is a priority to people who put it above necessary expenses such as food, education and other important needs,” he said. “The risk indicators of qat have become clear and specific to all and we must sharpen our determination and efforts to address the problem of qat as a major challenge facing agriculture in Yemen.”

The cultivation of qat in Yemen rose from 136,138 hectares in 2006 to 141,163 hectares last year, and its production rose from 147, 444 tons to 156, 290 tons during the same period.

Qat’s popularity in Yemen has led to its excessive cultivation, depleting the country’s agricultural resources. It is estimated that production increases by about 10 to 15 percent every year. Water consumption is so high that groundwater levels in the Sana’a basins are diminishing and are expected to dry out in just a little over 10 years from now.

but lets just call them all terrorists:

Yemen Observer

220 out of 1045 terrorist suspects were arrested by the Yemeni police in the year of 2007, according to a recent report issued by the Yemeni Ministry of Interior.

According to the report the 220 detainees were arrested under accusations of being involved in terrorist cases or in other organized and drug crimes. The report also revealed that other thousands of criminals were detained in 2007 for being involved in other different crimes.

The report stated that the security authorities could handle 34,386 crimes out of 36,894 at a rate of 63.2 percent.

According to the same report the number of premeditated crimes dropped by 96 percent compared to the year 2006 due to the firm implementation of the law that banned weapon-carrying in the main cities.

The report also revealed that 812 stolen cars out of 1,173 were brought back to their owners.

In 2007 the Yemeni authorities deported 1,390 Arabs and foreigners living illegally in the country, while more than 27,900 illegal immigrants were caught by the coastguard. The coastguard also registered more than 1,418 cases of smuggling refugees and water pollution cases in 2007. The report also stated that Yemeni authorities have given more than 32,000 residence identity cards for refugees from Africa and other Arab and Asian countries.

The United Nations granted the Yemeni Ministry of Interior its shield for the year 2008 in recognition for the great success it achieved in fighting drugs.

Yemen Observer

Calling upon the government to pay particular attention to the social and political dangers of unemployment was the aim of a workshop held last week in Aden. It was conducted by the Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO’s) Developing Center for Childhood and Youth (DCCY) in cooperation with the Canadian Center for Development of Aden, titled ‘Unemployment among youths, reality and solutions.’

Participants asked the NGO to do surveys in order to give real statistics about unemployment in all governorates of Yemen. They asked only non-government sources because they will give real numbers and facts about unemployment which will not be done by government organization.

Unemployment in Yemen has reached 34 percent, according to a report in 2006 issued by the Ministry of Planning and International Corporation. The report stated that less than half of working age young people are unemployed. Unemployment is on the raise according to the same report. There were around 188,000 graduates of 2006 while the government can only employ 16,000. The reports said that the number of graduates will increase during the coming years – and unemployment along with it.

(Read on …)

Its sad, sickening and infuriating all at once to imagine the lives of these young girls with no education, no rights, no healthcare, no employment opportunity, no ability to determine the course of their own lives, no recourse to justice and on an average six kids….

Sanaa, 9 June (AKI) - Over half of women who marry in Yemen are under 15 years of age, said a field study conducted by Yemen’s Women and Development Study Centre, which is affiliated with the University of Sanaa.

According to the study which was cited in the Yemen Times newspaper, the rate of child marriage among females in Yemen reached 52 percent, compared to less than seven percent among males.

On top of that, in rural parts of Yemen, girls usually get married at an average age of 12 to 13 years old.

The parliament in Yemen is reportedly working to raise the minimum marriageable age, which currently stands at 15 years old and so far there is no punishment for those families who allow their daughters to marry under this age.

“Recently the case of early marriage in Yemen has come to light, especially after the divorce of a little girl last month,” said Amatalrazaq Hummad, Yemen’s Minister of Social Affairs, in an interview with the Qatari daily Al-Watan.

Hummad was referring to the case of ‘Noujoud’, the first eight-year-old child to obtained a divorce from her husband who is in his early 30s, through a court in Sanaa.

Actually Yemen is ranked number one in gender inequality globally, so it is no surprise that Yemen makes the list of “Worst Places to be a Woman” compiled by Foreign Policy Magazine.

YEMEN
Worst in the Middle East

Share of women in Assembly of Representatives: Less than 1 percent

Female-to-male income ratio: 30:100

Female literacy rate: 35 percent

Early marriage is commonplace in Yemen, with 48 percent of girls married by the time they are 18 and some brides as young as 12. The result: poor health for mothers and babies. One in 39 women die during pregnancy or childbirth, and 1 in 10 children doesn’t make it to a fifth birthday. Yemeni women live particularly restricted lives; for example, getting a passport and traveling abroad requires a husband’s or father’s permission.

26 Sept

Yemen said on Friday it faces difficulties in achieving the goals “Millennium Development” in 2015 despite poverty rate had declined from 40.1 percent to 34.8 percent of the 22 million population.

In its annual report, Social Affairs and Labour Ministry pointed out the high rate of population growth had kept the number of poor people at approximately seven million people, noting the decreased of poverty level is still simple comparing with the objectives of Millennium Development. Its first goal requires reducing the number
of poor people to half.

The report confirmed that Yemen needs $49.5 billion to be able to meet the objectives of Millennium Development. According to the report, the Yemeni government is currently working to find the base funds for many development programs and projects.

A poll of 75% men finds opposition to a woman as governor….

YPC: 53.8% of Yemenis refuse idea of electing woman as governor

http://www.sabanews.net/en/news153385.htm
[05 May 2008]
SANA’A, May 05 (Saba)- A poll showed on Monday that 78.3 percent of the respondents had expressed support to the upcoming elections of the mayor of the capital Sana’a and governors of the provinces, which to be held on 17 may, while 21.5 percent said that the elections have no significance.

(Read on …)

Yemen Times

According to a 2006 estimate by UNICEF, 60 million marriages occurred worldwide before the age of 18, while in the Middle East, which includes Yemen, there were 3.3 million marriages before age 18, said Naseem Al-Rahman, chief of communications and advocacy for UNICEF-Yemen.

He further noted that in Yemen, 365 out of 100,000 women annually die in childbirth, often because their bodies are too young and immature to endure labor.

“Parents believe that the earlier and sooner they marry off their daughters, the better off they’ll be and hence, they are rid of the responsibility, so this is forcing young girls to marry while they’re still immature and not ready to become mothers,” Al-Rahman added.

Regarding early marriage in Yemen, general health expert Dr. Abdullah Al-Kamil says some studies assure and focus that nearly 25 percent of girls under age 15 marry in Yemen, while the other 25 percent marry between ages 11 and 15, 70 percent of whom live in rural areas.

(Read on …)

YT

The skyrocketing prices of wheat, cereals, and other grains have had a tremendous impact on populations reliant on the international markets to supply the needed grains, and Yemen has been affected significantly where the price of a 50-kg sack of wheat has increased from 3300 in the end of 2007 to over 7200 today. This increase affects primarily families which spend most of their income on basic foods and necessities, and now having to stretch their budgets more in order to be able to continue to afford buying the same quantities of food.

In explaining the bigger picture, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) indicated that the growth in global demand for grains is increasing by 3 %, while production is at lower rates, and have increased to 2.6% this year as grain producing countries slightly increase their grain plantations. This indicates that the gap in supply will continue to push the prices of grain higher, forcing grain importing countries like Yemen to rather pay a bigger bill or start searching for other sources of grain, including reliance on domestic production.

(Read on …)

Not counting agricultural work

Mareb

A governmental study reveals that about 700 thousands Yemeni children between 4-14 years old are working in streets of main cities because the poverty.

The Central System for Counting in Yemen, International Labour Organization, Social Fund for Development, and UNICEF are preparing to launch a wide field survey for child labour.

The survey aims to create a database clarifying the size of this phenomenon in Yemen which reports say it is increasing during the last years because of the deterioration of living status and the spread of the poverty.

The recent study issued by Ministry of Social Affairs and Labour said that the rate of child labor in Yemen last year increased from 400 thousand working children in 2000 to 700 thousand children working in jobs that do not fit with ages.

The study reveals that about 2 million children drop out of schools.

YT

SANA’A, April 20 — More than six percent of Yemenis have dropped below the poverty line due to rising staple food prices, joining the 40 percent of Yemenis already living on less than $2 per day, Yemen’s country director for the World Food Program, or WFP, said at a press conference Saturday.

Additionally, there are few viable methods available to the average Yemeni family to help cope with the recent increased risk of starvation.

“Coping mechanisms are limited to skipping essential needs, so it either affects the food basket or health and education,” said Mohamed El-Kouhene, Yemen’s WFP country director, adding, “If we don’t do something now, Millennium Development Goals will be set back 70 years.”

In order to feed their families, those Yemenis living below the poverty line will have to either skip meals, decrease their intake of fruits, vegetables and meat, or discontinue medical visits and schooling for their children, he noted.

The state of the nation’s food instability, which has increased due to price hikes, has become more precarious as the $28 million gap between the WFP’s budget and Yemen’s need continues to grow.

Although the Yemeni government has been attempting reforms in water management and increasing agricultural output, these efforts aren’t enough to stave off hunger for the majority of the population, as both rural and urban residents are affected.

World Bank President Robert Zoellick urged developed nations to contribute the promised $500 million in emergency donations to the WFP in a press statement made on April 9. “This isn’t just a question of short-term needs, as important as they are,” Zoellick stated to the Associated Press. “This is about ensuring that future generations don’t pay a price too.”

Between June 2007 and March 2008, the price of basic cereals has increased 55 percent worldwide, according to El-Kouhene.

A major factor contributing to the global rise in grain prices are energy and oil prices, which affect everything from food production to processing to transportation.

With oil prices reaching new heights, El-Kouhene expects food prices to increase as well, climbing for several months before stabilizing.

While there have been reports of field workers bribing beneficiaries or stealing food, El-Kouhene says the WFP has a strong monitoring system, noting that when commodities disappeared from one WFP warehouse last year, they were restituted quickly.

Other problems, such as water shortage and using arable land for qat production, are under government review, but the 46 percent of Yemenis living in dire poverty don’t have the luxury of waiting for solutions.

April 23 (Bloomberg) — Nagy Ali Mohammed isn’t worried about a water shortage in Yemen. He says God will provide what’s needed for the craggy, volcanic land where he grows khat, a leaf chewed daily by most Yemeni men.

“There is Allah above,” the 50-year-old said as a red truck pumped water into his fields. “There always will be water.”

Yemen will need more than Nagy’s faith in the divine to avert a crisis. The Middle Eastern nation’s addiction to khat is sucking up scarce water resources. Cultivation of the mild stimulant has increased 13-fold in three decades and now uses 30 percent of the nation’s water, according to the World Bank.

Khat is consuming water needed to meet growing demands as the population increases by 3.5 percent annually and people desert the countryside for the city. The capital, Sanaa, won’t have enough water for its more than 2 million inhabitants within two decades, said Ramon Scoble, team leader for a water project run by German aid agency GTZ.

“It is not a matter of if it happens anymore, but a matter of when,” he said.

The water shortage risks exacerbating other challenges faced by the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest country, which doesn’t have the oil and gas resources of neighboring Saudi Arabia and Oman. A surge in al-Qaeda attacks is driving away tourists. On April 11, the U.S. State Department ordered non-essential embassy employees to leave Sanaa.

Rising commodity prices will accelerate the annual inflation rate to 15 percent this year, the highest in the region, according to an Economist Intelligence Unit report.

Arabia Felix

Called Arabia Felix, or happy Arabia, by the Romans for its abundant natural resources, Yemen now imports as much as 95 percent of its wheat.

“The water shortage is an acute problem,” said Selva Ramachandran of the United Nations Development Program in Sanaa.

The lack of water is likely to change the landscape of the Islamic nation of 19.3 million. Scoble estimated that as much 40 percent of Sanaa residents will have to relocate within 25 years.

Yemeni farmers pump five times more water than is returned to underground basins each year, according to the Ministry of Water and Environment.

Khat, which Yemenis say brings them clarity of thought and humor, is engrained in the local culture. More than 50 percent of Yemeni men chew the leaf every day, according to a World Bank report published last June. Some spend as much as 6 hours a day chewing baseball-sized wads jammed into their cheeks.

One in seven working Yemeni produce and distribute khat, making it the second-largest source of jobs in the country, the World Bank says. It employs more people than the public sector.

Subsidized Fuel

Khat farmer Nagy Ali Mohammed says he isn’t naive enough to say there’s no problem, though there’s little he can do but pray.

“We get our money from khat,” he said.

To irrigate khat, farmers have dug tube wells powered by state-subsidized fuel.

The government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh is in a bind. While cheap fuel encourages the over-use of water, reducing the subsidies would make it too expensive for farmers to irrigate their fields, said Mohammed Ibrahim al-Hamdi, deputy minister of water and environment.

“The government talks about conserving water, but indirectly the government subsidizes water extraction through fuel subsidies,” al-Hamdi said.

In the past, the government tried to prohibit khat use in public offices and excluded khat farmers from receiving loans for irrigation projects. While police are barred from chewing khat on duty, men in green uniforms smile with wads in their cheeks and guns slung over their shoulders as they search for al-Qaeda members on the roads around Sanaa.

“It is a losing battle,” al-Hamdi said, adding that the government doesn’t have the manpower, training or money to fight the drug.

Wells and Water Jars

In As-Sowdah, a village north of Sanaa that has no electricity, Hindia Ahmed treks 500 meters across the parched earth five or six times a day to reach the local well. When the well runs dry, she must descend into the Amran basin by foot or donkey to collect water trucked in by the government.

“It is difficult and hard work carrying water,” said the 50-year-old woman, with a metal pot balanced on her head. Her black headscarf and green-flowered skirt stand out against the barren landscape. “I always have a backache.”

Households of 8 to 15 people in villages such as As-Sowdah use as little as 40 to 100 liters a day for cooking, drinking and washing, Scoble said. The World Health Organization says each person should have access to 180 liters of water daily.

Inside Bab al-Yemen, the historical gateway to the Old City of Sanaa and along alleys bordered by stone and baked-brick houses, buying khat is a daily ritual. Men wearing pin-striped suit jackets and skirts, with ornate daggers strapped around their waists, haggle over price and quality.

“Khat is the whiskey of Yemen,” said Saleh Amid Qalan, a 32-year-old government employee, standing in a passage next to the seventh century Great Mosque, the country’s oldest.

Three million kids working

Al-Sahwa

Alsahwa.net

March 31, 2008 – A recent statistic prepared by Child Labor Office in 6 Yemeni governorates estimated child labor about 189000 children.

The study made clear that most children work in farming;38,000 in Ibb, 29,000 in Sana’a, 27,000 in Dhamar, 28,000 in Amran, 20,000 in Hodaida.

An official report issued recently by the Shoura Council pointed out that the child labor growth in Yemen is 3 percent.

,indicating that child labor extensively centers in the field of agriculture by 92%, while 4.8% work in services , 2.5% of them are non-professional employment.

The report also explained that children work for over 17 hours a day and receive low wages.

According to a statistics prepared in 2003, the number of child labor reached 3,2 million children. Law prohibits child labor in some occupations.

According to Yemen’s law, the established minimum age for employment is 15 years in contrary to the international law which identifies that with 18 years.

The Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor estimated in 2000 that 400,000 children work in occupations which do not fit their ages and about 2,000,000

Yemen Observer

Yemeni children under one year of age are especially prone to malnutrition, according to a Sana’a University study conducted by a group of researchers at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Science.

The study was conducted on child patients younger than ten years of age from a number of governmental hospitals in Sana’a. “This research was aimed to assess and quantify the magnitude of inequalities in under-ten child malnutrition, particularly those ascribable to socio-economic status and gastroenteritis, to consider the policy implications of these findings,” said Dr. Ubada Jum’a, one of the researchers involved in the study.

About 53 percent of Yemen’s population,with more than 24,000 Yemeni children under the age of five, are estimated to suffer from malnutrition, according to officials of the Country Program, run by the United Nations World Food Programme in cooperation with the Ministry of Public Health and Population and the Ministry of Education. The Country Program is expected to be implemented in Yemen during the next five years.

The World Health Organization defines malnutrition as the cellular imbalance between supply of nutrients and energy and the body’s demand for them to ensure proper growth, maintenance and specific bodily functions.

A child becomes malnourished because of illness in combination with inadequate food intake. Insufficient access to food, poor health services, the lack of safe water and sanitation and inadequate child and maternal care are underlying causes.

More than 1.1 billion people in the world lack access to safe drinking water and some 2.9 billion people lack access to adequate sanitation. This results in the spread of infectious diseases, including childhood diarrhea, which in turn are major causes of malnutrition.

Malnutrition contributes to over 6 million deaths of children each year of the nearly 12 million deaths among children under five in developing countries. Half of all children under five years of age in South Asia and one third of those in sub-Saharan Africa are malnourished.

Poor eating habits or lack of available food may lead to malnutrition. Malnutrition occurs in children who are either undernourished or overnourished. Children who are overnourished may become overweight or obese, which may lead to long-term health problems and social stress. Malnutrition can occur because of the lack of a single vitamin in the diet, or it can be because a person isn’t getting enough food.

Malnutrition also occurs when adequate nutrients are consumed in the diet, but one or more nutrients are not digested or absorbed properly.

The Yemeni study found that most cases of malnourishment, 44 percent are found in children less than six months of age with about 33 percent of children between 7 months and one year old are suffering from malnutrition. Children between one to five years of age suffer less from malnutrition than other age groups, with a rate of 22 percent, the study found.

According to the study, most of the malnourished children, 76 percent, come from various rural areas, while just 25 percent are found to be living in cities. Since the highest rate of malnourished children is found in rural areas, this can be interpreted and being caused by the parents’ lack of education. It was found that 89 percent of the mothers were not educated, while just 3 percent of the fathers were highly educated.

The family’ socioeconomic condition plays an important role in affecting children’s nutrition, as about 33 percent of affected children were living in a low socioeconomic state.

The study noted that about 23 percent of malnourished children suffered from respiratory problems after delivery and 29 percent of them had gastrointestinal tract (GIT) troubles. Moreover, it is important to note that just 45 percent of the children were breast feeding, while 33 percent were fed with artificial milk and 22 percent were fed with both, the study said.

“It’s also interesting to know that more than 40 percent of malnourished children had stopped breast feeding before reaching one year of age. This may be the main cause of malnutrition and inadequate nutrient intake,” said Dr. Jum’a.

Vaccination is very important for protecting children from many diseases. The study also found that 50 percent of the children did not receive regular vaccinations.

Gastroenteritis was found to be the most prevalent cause of malnutrition in Yemen as about 64 percent of cases were found to be due to gastroenteritis and 22 percent were due to abnormal dietary intake. These causes have a correlation with breast feeding and the family’s low education and poor socioeconomic conditions.

Yemen is one of the least developed countries in the world. Its widespread nutritional deficit is likely the result of Yemen’s extremely low national income, as well as the poor state of education in the country. The fact that roughly 50 percent of families’ income goes towards qat is also a factor. In 2005 the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) ranked Yemen 151st out of 177 in the list of countries on the Human Development Index.

According to the UN World Food Programme, almost half the people in Yemen do not have enough to eat. About 40 percent of Yemen’s population of 22 million lives below the poverty line on less than $2 per day. Moreover, opportunities to receive education and health care are limited, especially in rural areas, where 88 percent of women and 36 percent of men are illiterate, the report shows.

The World Bank has noted that the average annual income was only $450 in 2003, and Yemen’s unemployment rate was close to 40 percent in that same year. “Malnutrition is one of the main challenges in Yemen, where 46 percent - almost half - of the children are underweight,” said Naseem Ur-Rehman, communications coordinator at UNICEF’s Sana’a office. “The magnitude of the problem is huge, as underweight children are particularly vulnerable to diseases, compounding the issue.”

Health indicators also reveal other serious problems. The number of mothers who die during childbirth is increasing faster than in the world’s most underdeveloped countries. In 2005, the infant mortality rate (for babies under 1 year of age) was 76 deaths per 1,000 live births, according to UNICEF. The rate for children under five was 102.

The study’s researchers think that prevention of malnutrition in children starts with an emphasis on prenatal nutrition and good prenatal care. Health care providers should emphasize the importance of breastfeeding in the first year of life.

In addition to the promotion of breastfeeding, health care providers should counsel parents on the appropriate introduction of nutritious supplemental foods, the researchers said.

The study, supervised by Dr. Mohammed al-Naeb who is an assistant professor in the Community Medicine Department, recommended paying more attention to those children who are at risk of nutritional deficiency. According to the study, they should be referred to a registered dietitian or other nutritional professional for a complete nutritional assessment and dietary counseling.

The study was conducted by Ubada Jum’a, Qutaiba Lutfi, and Amer Attia.

Source: IRIN

SANAA, 17 February 2008 (IRIN) - A technical committee of Yemen’s Ministry of Human Rights recently finished drafting a 17-article parliamentary bill which, if ratified by parliament, aims to clarify the country’s asylum law and give the government more control over asylum seekers and refugees in the country.

Officials could not say when the draft law will be presented before the legislature.

Sulaiman Tabrizi, head of the rights ministry’s International Organisations Department, told IRIN that the driving motivation behind the draft law was to clarify the status of the continuous stream of Africans fleeing to Yemen. “Their legal status is not clear. Should all of them be regarded as refugees or migrants? Is the Refugee Convention applicable to them? Does Yemen have the capacity to deal with all of them?” he said.

Yemen is the only country in the Arabian Peninsula that has signed the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its related 1967 Protocol, which removed a deadline and geographical restrictions from the Convention.

Tabrizi said if passed the new law would spell out the Yemeni government’s responsibilities towards would-be refugees. “There is a need to show how someone who has been persecuted in his country should be treated. In some cases, refugees [in Yemen] are not treated in accordance with the 1951 Refugee Convention and 1967 Protocol,” he said, adding that the new law would rectify this.

“The 1991 Yemeni Migration Law is the only law that is applied to refugees, but that does not comply with the Refugee Convention,” Tabrizi said.

New law defines refugees

Yemen’s draft law defines a refugee as anyone who has left his country of origin for fear of prosecution as a result of his race, religion, nationality, political views or social class; or as a result of foreign assault on, or occupation of, his country, riots or unrest.

The new law seeks to give the government more control over who is given refugee status, what they are entitled to and where they live.

At present in Yemen, the government gives Somalis, who make up the vast majority of African asylum seekers, automatic refugee status once they apply for it, while non-Somali Africans (mostly Ethiopians and Eritreans) must apply to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) for refugee status.

New restrictions

Under the new law, a governmental committee would be formed to consider asylum applications from all nationalities and decide whether or not to grant applicants refugee status. The committee would be chaired by an elected official from the rights ministry and its membership would consist of officials from the interior and foreign affairs ministries among others. The committee would work in coordination with UNHCR.

Yemen’s government currently allows African refugees to move freely in the country and work in non-government jobs. Under the draft law, refugees would only be allowed to live in areas assigned by the rights ministry.

According to Yemeni security authorities, many African migrants enter Yemen illegally and many do not register at any of the country’s seven government/UNHCR-run reception centres. Under the new law, the rights ministry would have the authority to expel any asylum seeker or refugee in Yemen, after consulting with security authorities and UNHCR, if it is deemed necessary to protect national or public security.

Ahmed Hayel, an official at the interior ministry, told IRIN that by the end of 2007 the number of Africans (both legal and illegal migrants) in Yemen had reached about 800,000 out of a total population of 21 million. Most were Somalis.

The UNHCR office in Yemen put the total number of African registered (legal) migrants at over 100,000, mostly from Somalia, although, Abdul-Malik Aboud, a UNHCR official, recently conceded that the number of Africans in Yemen was more than the number registered.

This is a very important survey.

Mareb Press

SANAA, Aid workers say children and adolescents in Saada Governorate, northern Yemen, have experienced high levels of psychological trauma as a result of prolonged fighting between government forces and a Shia rebel group.

Their assertion is based in part on the results of a UN Children’s Fund-funded survey carried out by the Medical Charitable Association (MCA), a local non-governmental organisation. The psycho-social assessment survey covered all 15 of Saada’s districts in August-October 2007.

Some 1,400 respondents were selected, 630 of whom were children and adolescents. Some 92.4 percent of the sampled children and adolescents had been exposed to armed conflict; 5.7 percent were evacuated temporarily from their villages during armed conflict; 44 percent were forced to hide to save their lives; 43.4 percent saw the destruction of their or their friends’ houses; 28 percent felt they were about to die during the conflict; 15 percent were injured; 13.8 percent had at least one family member killed; and 10 percent had one family member missing.

Mohammed al-Maqrami, technical coordinator of the Psychosocial Support Project, told IRIN that 53.2 percent of respondents ranked high on major depressive symptoms, and 49.2 percent on post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

“Saada locals, according to the findings, had high levels of PTSD symptoms - on a par with traumatised populations in post-conflict areas like Nepal, Palestine and Iran,” he said.

According to al-Maqrami, symptoms included depression, anxiety, behavioural and aggression problems, and physical symptoms (like nausea, headaches and tremors).

The Saada Governorate has only seven health facilities, and a population of some 700,000. There is no specialist facility for psychological cases.

Training

On 16 February MCA started a two-week training workshop in Saada city, targeting 70 local people. The trainees include health and education workers, civil society organisations, and community leaders. Mahfoud al-Kadam, an MCA information officer, said the trainees would learn how to deal with psychologically affected people, and also be given manuals.

Once trained, Al-Kadam said, trainees would be sent to the field to deal with traumatised people and also train locals on dealing with them.

According to MCA, delayed onset disorder cases or those with persistent psychological distress, despite receiving psychological first aid and group interventions locally, will need to be referred to regional and central teams for more specialised treatment.

source: IRIN

10% die generally in the crossing from Somalia. What is the answer: let them land? Set up a UN station in Bossasso?

GENEVA (Reuters) - More than 1,400 would-be migrants, mostly Somalis and Ethiopians, have drowned off Yemen this year trying to cross the Gulf of Aden on rickety boats run by brutal smugglers, the U.N. refugee agency said on Tuesday.

The toll includes nearly 200 people believed to have died last weekend after one vessel capsized off the coast of Yemen and another broke up after hitting a rock.

Desperate passengers have been beaten, pushed overboard and doused with acid on perilous journeys during 2007, according to aid workers who are trying to halt further loss of life.

“This has been a tragic year in the Gulf of Aden. As of now we have statistics that more than 1,400 people have died. These are the ones that we have recorded, and there might be more,” Astrid van Genderen Stort, spokeswoman of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told a news briefing.

(Read on …)

Wow, the The Yemen Observer covers the topic of racial bigotry and discrimination. I’ve seen a few articles about the Ahdkam but nothing like this about general social attitudes toward “the colored”.

The extent to which people have empathy for the colored varies from one person to another. From the people interviewed, I received similar answers, “Besides being repugnant in their filthy looks, they are thieves,” said Muhammad Skandar, a police officer. Other people said that they do not like them simply due to the nature of their work. Ramy’s response to such arguments throws light on the irrational reasons for these opinions. “Lots of people tend to cover their discrimination with unreasonable arguments, but they are discriminating, nonetheless,” he says. “For instance, the colored are involved in few cases of thievery compared to others whose behavior can’t or mustn’t be disapproved of.” He also points out that when they must labor to do their job, we unjustly label them as dirty people.

Ramy has come up with a couple of practical solutions in order for the colored to be integrated into society. He believes that everyone in our country must share the responsibility of raising awareness among people and especially in the coming generation. He suggests that “families should no longer belittle them; schools, through curricula, should admire whomever serves his or her country; media could present a weekly citation for the great effort they make; mosque preachers, instead of their unhealthy obsession with collecting money, must give even a little attention to the colored and remind us of Belal, as well as the Prophet, saying that all people are equal; government must mandate that everyone should do what they have to do accordingly.”

Yemen Observer

A new study has found that very few Yemeni women use contraception. The study, conducted by researchers in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Science in Sana’a University, determined the factors influencing the use of contraception among married women in different Yemeni governorates in 2005.

(Read on …)

The Public Works Ministry had a re-shuffle in July and implemented some measures to thwart contractor corruption. Which of course is excellent and shows how some of the Cabinet Ministers are really trying to make a positive change. However their efforts are often diminished by the lack of cooperation from other ministries and of couse, ye old influential persons.

SANA’A, NewsYemen

Minister of Public Works Omar al-Korshomi has stated his ministry is preparing to set up 2500 housing units and 298 blocks with a cost estimated over USD 16 billion.

He said the project, to be implemented in five years, targets the needy and limited-income people and solving the housing problem in the country.

The Al-Ekariya magazine said that the ministry is planning to construct 298 buildings in the capital Sana’a, Hadramout, Aden, Hodeidah and Taiz with a total cost as much as $12 billion for 4768 limited income families. Every building will be consisted of four floors containing four apartments in each, said the magazine.

The magazine said the families could own the apartments and pay back for the apartments during 15 to 20 years.

According to al-Korshomi, the 2500 housing units, of more than $3 billion, will be distributed for needy families in Haradh and Abs cities of Hajjah governorate, Bajil city in Hodeidah, in addition to Aden, Sana’a, Taiz and Hadramout.

The General Corporation for Social Insurances said it has prepared plans and proposals to invest the insurances surplus in establishing housing units in Aden, Sana’a, Taiz, Hodeidah and Hadramout after directions of president Saleh and a decision by the cabinet in this regard.

The two billion is coming from the foreign reserves which total around 7 billion, leaving five billion. Thats a big move to liquidate about 27% of foreign reserves in one shot.

Yemen Times

- Saleh instructs using reserves for development

President Saleh stated that he has given instructions to the government to use one billion dollars of the general foreign currency reserves to Generate Electricity, and another billion dollars to provide urgent employment opportunities to reduce unemployment. This was stated at the opening session of the Agricultural cooperative conference held on the 13th.

SANA’A, Aug. 13 — The President of the Republic Ali Abdullah Saleh instructed the government last Monday to assign $ 1billion so as to accelerate producing electricity power to cover the power shortage. He also allocates another $ 1 billion to create job opportunities to the huge number of unemployed people.

Saleh pointed out to the participants of the 4th General Conference of the Cooperative agricultural Union that he is trying to solve the critical and significant situations of the shortage of electricity as well as the steadily accelerating unemployment.

“We are looking forward to come out of the conference with positive and fruitful outcomes to avoid deficit aspects which occurred during the last period”, the President said.

He also stressed that the government should seriously solve the perplexing problem of unemployment which is of high rate in Yemen.

Recent studies referred that Unemployment in Yemen increased sharply due to the government failure to improve the economic policies and enhance the life standards of Yemen. According to the 2006 annual economic report, unemployment average in Yemen has rocketed up since 2003 – 05 to 34%, which is regarded as the biggest number so far.

The report stated also that the number of young people graduating every year from universities and private institutions reaches up to 188000 graduates, while the available annual vacancies are not more than 16000 jobs.

Unemployment in Yemen is a real hassle facing the development as it has economical and social effects. The person average daily income has been affected due to the recent price hikes and the increase of unemployment. Studies conducted by both local and international institutions show that poverty is the main cause of violence and crimes.

The young people spend their time hanging around in the streets, committing violence and crimes as a result of unemployment.

The electricity, on the other hand, is not in a good condition too. Yemeni people all over the country suffer from unbearable power shortage.

“It is a received habit that the power goes off daily for one to two hours. Sometimes during the exam period the power keeps on flashing continuously and we can go with that, but in Ramadan, it is unbearable”, a 25-year-old young man working in Trust Yemen Company said.

“The President pledged during his recent electoral campaign to enhance the power shortage with nuclear power and we are still waiting”, he continued.

According to Yemen’s Public Electricity Corporation (PEC), the country’s electricity distribution network is inadequate. Currently, it is estimated that only 40 percent of the total population in Yemen have access to electricity from the national power grid. Even for those connected to the grid, electricity supply is intermittent, with rolling blackout schedules maintained in most cities. In order to meet the growing demand (up to 20 percent between 2000 and 2004) and to avert an energy crisis in the medium term, Yemen’s Electricity and Water Ministry has plans to increase the country’s power, generating capacity to 1,400 megawatts (MW) by 2010.

Yemen Observer
Yemen’s population has been rocketing skywards over the last 10 years, particularly in Sana’a, said Minister of Health Abdul-Karim Ras’e. “Sana’a’s population increased four times, and Aden’s has doubled over the past 10 years.”
Also, Yemen’s population threatens to reach 45 million in the next 23 years if nothing urgent is done to stop this runaway increase, said the annual report of the United Nations Population Fund, which discusses the latest state of world population in 2007.
A conference was held in celebration of the report on the state of world population; the celebration was held at the Ministry’s headquarters.
The rapid population growth is exacerbating Yemen’s many problems.

(Read on …)

Now what is this? Wouldn’t it make a little more sense to start with the people in Yemen? What kind of insurance, medical, life?

Friday 20 April 2007

26 Septemper News

SANA’A, 20 April, (26sep.net) - The Public Insurance Foundation (PIF) is preparing to launch the first phase of insuring of the Yemeni expatriates abroad during the coming days.

Sources in the foundation told (26sep.net) that the foundation has completed all procedures of covering the Yemeni expatriates abroad under the umbrella of Insurance Foundation, clarifying that this phase will include the expatriates in the Gulf States, while the coming phases will include the Yemeni expatriates in the Arab countries, East and Middle Africa, Southeast Asia, America and Canada.

The sources added that this program comes according to President Saleh’s electoral program and to link the expatriate with his original home.

More renewed attention on expatriates. They should register:

almotamar.net - The Yemen Ministry of Civil Service and Securities has Saturday called on expatriate Yemenis to subscribe to the system of social security “for protecting them and their families in future”.

The Minister of Civil Service Hamoud al-Soufi said the measure of security for the Yemeni expatriates comes to protect this segment of Yemenis working abroad and to secure the life and the elderly according to the constitution that guaranteed social protection for every citizen.

Minister al-Soufi added the state endeavours has begun from an early time for the spread of social protection and particularly security protection of the workforce and to compensate the loss of income in facing disability, old age and death. The system of social securities run by the State Establishment for Social securities was established since 1987 and it targets workers in the private sector. He has in this regard called on the expatriates abroad to join the securities establishment through monthly contributions amounting to 15% of income.

That came in a joint press conference grouping the two ministers of civil service and expatriates on Saturday at the headquarters of the securities establishment.

In response o a question by almotamar.net in this respect the minister of civil service the money of subscribers to security is invested in safe areas in buying the central bank’s treasury bonds in addition to shares in communications sector and the sector liquefied gas exploration.

YT:

At the first meeting, held by the new cabinet, Same’e clarified that the government has taken a consensus decision, considering the issue of expatriates as a personal one, necessitating officials to work hard for its sake.

(Read on …)

I’m speechless for once.

The Australian:
SIHAM Rabiyah was 12 when her uncles sliced her genitals to uphold her family honour. She remembers the searing pain, the crowd around her and the blood, but little else about the day of her mutilation in the coastal Yemeni city of Aden.
One decade on, Siham is married with an infant son, living far away from her family home, but still haunted by her ordeal and trapped in a culture where women are routinely circumcised and “honour crime” is increasing.

From behind her black burka in Sana’a, the capital of Yemen, Siham says she wants to talk about what happened to her to highlight the practice of female circumcision, which is still ritually performed in many areas of coastal Yemen and throughout the Middle East. Women’s rights groups estimate that up to 25 per cent of Yemeni women have been circumcised, with numbers likely to be sharply higher in tribal areas outside their reach and the realm of health officials.

For many women in Yemen, the procedure is performed shortly after birth - not with the sharp edge of a knife, but with salt or warm cloths pressed repeatedly against an infant girl’s underdeveloped organs during the first 40 days of her life.

“They do it to try and stop the clitoris from forming,” said Amal al-Basha, head of the most prominent women’s rights groups in the eastern Arabian state. “It is a procedure that is done for weeks and sometimes months.”

(Read on …)