Armies of Liberation

Seeks a savior

Hodiedah: In an interview with Marib Press, 12 year old “Hanadi” said she was forced into marriage by her impoverished father to pay a debt. Her husband tried repeatedly to rape her, her tears were no deterrent, and he threatened to beat her. After three days, he drugged by her with sleeping pills in her juice. She woke up bruised, confused and bleeding. The child ran away and is currently in the Hodiedah CID, appealing to Human Rights Organizations to save her. A medical exam proves the child was violently raped. The father and husband were interviewed by police. The father asserts the husband promised not to engage in intercourse until she was older. The husband says he didn’t touch her.

“12 year old Hanadi launched a distress call to the Ministry of Human Rights and human rights organizations demanding urgent intervention and to direct the security agencies to arrest the looter of her childhood and to investigate him and refer him to the judiciary.”

The issue is where is she going to go live. And its questionable if either the father or husband will be charged with a crime. There is no law in Yemen designating a minimum marriage age. Without publicity, she might have to go back. If she does not return to her husband, the father’s debt is still in force because she was basically sold like a slave. Children are frequently used as chattel. At least half of all marriages in Yemen occur before 16. Unsurprisingly, Yemen’s youthful female revolutionaries are quite determined to overthrow the system.

I’m hoping this is another false story planted to discredit the opposition media. Update: I am increasingly skeptical as no one saw it and after 24 hours the family hasn’t come forward. There was another fake two months ago where a female student leader was supposedly arrested in Hodiedah. HOOD announced and retracted a notice about a boy raped to death in Sanaa. False stories planted by the regime are designed to undermine the opposition media. The photo accompanying the story is of a Saudi women and a different news story.

SOS: Human Rights Activists seek the International Community’s support

A statement issued by Sister Arab Forum

Today, a female protest activists in Yemen , Ghania Alaraaj was burned to death by the pro-regime tugs in Sana’a, who were spread in the southern part of the capital Sana’a , and cut roads in the morning in Sana’a.

We call upon the International Community to help activist from such brutal acts by Saleh regime.

These figures are up slightly since 2005. The good news is that one million poor Yemeni women and children who never had access to health services in their lives will now receive some support from the international community. Less than half of Yemenis have access to medical services. Clean water, sanitation, electricity, and other basic services are similarly lacking. This World Bank press release contains the appalling medical current stats. Update: Neonatal tetanus kills 30,000 new born Yemeni babies a year. Pampers SA is chipping in for some vaccines, but over three million doses are needed. (Read on …)

Arab news: Saudi women played a marginal role in deviant group’s activities

Wafa Al-Shehri is another notable Saudi female terrorist. She is wife of Saeed Al-Shehri, the second in command of Al-Qaeda in Yemen. Her association with Al-Qaeda started with her marriage to Abdul Rahman Al-Ghamdi, who was killed in a clash with police in Taif in 2004. Later, Wafa married former Guantanamo detainee Al-Shehri after fleeing to Yemen.
(Read on …)

A 14 year old girl was raped by her father and became pregnant. For God’s sakes, why would the judge put her in jail and not a hospital?

al Tagheer: Lawyer Adnan Al Jabri, who pleads in the case of a child raped in the governorate of Ibb, expressed his displeasure at what was happened to Sumaia M. A. A. (14 years) who was raped by her father and then sent to prison, when he tried to release her through a number of memoranda from many authorities, including human rights, but all the attempts have failed.

The Yemeni police has arrested on October 5, 2010 a person accused of raping his daughter, who made pregnant.

According to exclusive sources of “Al Thagheer” the Security Administration in Khadeer Al Odein in Ibb governorate accused “M. A. A. 37-year-old,” of raping his daughter (Sumaia) 14-year, last month.

Lawyer Al Jabri, said in a statement to “Al Thagheer” that the head of Mudaikhara Court, Judge Ali Issa, is insisting on imprisoning her without justification.

Al Jabri added: she was investigated just as a defendant and was taken into the custody of the central prison in Ibb, rather than taking care of her in any social department, and her only fault that she was raped by her father and made her pregnant, which caused her psychological health to decline, as well as the continuous delay of the DNA examination, pointing out that the lack of such tests in such issues, which happen to lives of female children, that the scarcity of centers or private hospitals is the biggest obstacle in the proceedings of the case, stressing that such an examination identifies the perpetrator of the crime and according to it the litigation continues. (Read on …)

Yes I know that’s a poor google translation of an al Wasat headline about the dispute over the marriage age in Yemen, but the fanatics are claiming their right to have intercourse with children all over Yemen, they might as well do it in the Parliament.

The Yemeni Parliament is overwhelmingly illiterate, and comprised of powerful sheiks and businessmen. Half of Yemeni female children are married before 15, and many before 12 and mortality rates are very high. Most drop out of school if they ever attend. With 70% in rural areas, most spend their lives doing manual labor. Here’s an English language write up of last week’s debate, which came to blows with sticks and fists, but it is not only Islah’s MP’s that support child marriage, some in the GPC do as well. The drive is to set the marriage age at 18, but even 15 would be a vast improvement.

YemenOnline.oct 28,2010- Debate was intensified between the MPs of ruling party GPC and opposition Islamist Islah party in the House of Representatives last Wednesday because of determining of marriage age of minors in Yemen . MPs of GPC demanded to vote on the new law that Which sets the marriage age from 18 years old while the Islamists MPs rejected that on the grounds of its contrary to Islamic dispensation. Sultan Al-Barakni,head of MPs group of GPC stressed that his party has the majority and they approved to determine minors marriage age.

We decided to vote in favor of law’ Al-Barakini declared. Two of Islamists MPs attempted to attack Al-Barakini using their hands and sticks . So, the Spokesman of the parliament decided to postpone the vote on the law until another session

Seyaj rejects the pressure of a police officer to marry a child

Seyaj organization for childhood protection has directed a letter to the Interior Minister and Taiz’s governor demanded them to guide the Security’s manager in Maqbanah district to respect the orders of judgeship as enforceable to implement and as the responsibility of the police. (Read on …)

Its just a happy story. The inability to procure funds for a dowry is one of the many social stressors young Yemenis face.

Saudi crown prince funds 3,200 marriages
October 22, 2010

Saudi Arabia’s crown prince has funded the marriage of 3,200 Yemeni orphans, described by local officials as the largest mass wedding in the region, Saudi newspapers reported on Friday.

The couples tied the knot after getting the nod from Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud, who is also Saudi Arabia’s deputy premier and defence minister.

The wedding, which was staged in Sanaa on Thursday is “a unique and unprecedented marriage even in the Middle East,” said Hameed Zaid, head of the Yemeni Orphans Charity Establishment, which organised the wedding.

Thank God. What happens when a baby gets tetanus, usually through infection of the umbilical cord after birth, is that it withers and dies, slowly and painfully. As I noted in my recent article, one third of under five deaths in Yemen are from vaccine preventable illnesses. (And another significant portion can be traced to dirty water.) The maternal mortality rates may be understated in the following article. Its difficult to say anything about Yemen with clarity, but some estimates go as high as 340 deaths per 10,000 births. With two vaccine doses, the mother is able to provide some immunity for her newborn. Public awareness of the importance of keeping the umbilical cord clean is another issue. The medical workers still can’t get into Sa’ada though.

Up 1.7 mln women to be immunized against tetanus in Yemen
[09/أكتوبر/2010] SABA

SANA’A, Oct. 09 (Saba)– The Ministry of Public Health and Population in collaboration with UNICEF will launch on Saturday a weeklong Maternal and Neonatal Tetanus Elimination (MNTE) Campaign from 9-14 of October 2010. In a press release, UNICEF said that the campaign will target 1.7 million women of child-bearing age (15-49) in 202 districts in 14 Yemeni provinces. (Read on …)

Hardliners maintain their opposition. Yemeni girls are the voiceless of the voiceless.

Other news from Parliament includes Saleh orders the dropping the election amendment after the JMP withdraws, and Chairman of the Central Organisation for Control and Auditing (COCA) Dr Abdullah al-Sanafi presented a statement on revising accounts of the state for the last year. I’d love to see those figures.

z(CNN) — Yemen’s parliament has delayed a vote on a child-marriage law that would have raised the minimum legal age for marriage to 17. (Read on …)

Dowries for women with American citizenship range now from $30K to $75K. The reason being that the newlywed husband can gain a visa to emigrate to the US. It is considered fraud and illegal in the US for an American citizen to marry someone just to enable their spouse to get a green card. The rest of the article deals with the hardship the women endure, while their fathers profit well. I checked to see if the article means riyals, but no, in Yemen they are saying its dollars. Many Yemeni-Americans come from Ibb.

al Masdar The marriage of nationality” (Citizen) is spreading in the province of the “father” – which has the largest Yemeni community in America – and I mean to marry a Yemeni who have the U.S. citizenship, the fact of carrying a U.S. citizen can give her husband, “Visa” to immigrate to America.
ولقلة الفتيات الحاصلات على الجنسية الأميركية، وزيادة الطلب عليهن، ارتفعت المهور بشكلٍ ملفت، حتى أصبحت المرأة -بمعنى أو بآخر- سلعةً تجارية خاضعة لقوانين البيع والشراء، وعلى الطريقة الأميركية؛ السوق المفتوح. Girls and a few crops to U.S. citizenship, and increased demand for them, the higher the dowry dramatically, to become women – in the sense or another – a commodity subject to the laws of buying and selling, and the American way; the open market. إذ وصل المهر في بعض حالاته إلى 75 ألف دولار أميركي، بيدَ أنه في أدنى مستوياته لا يقلّ عن ثلاثين ألف دولار أميركي، وأصبحت المرأة تنكح لجوازها الأميركي، دون النظر إلى جمالها أو حسبها أو دينها، ودون الرجوع إليها. Dowry, as it reached in some cases is 75 thousand U.S. dollars, but it at the lowest levels of not less than thirty thousand U.S. dollars, and women are married to American permissible, without regard to her beauty, lineage, religion, and without reference.

A ten year old has no capacity to consent.

al Jazeera: The International Centre for Research on Women (ICRW) found that just under half of all girls in Yemen are married before they are 18 – classified as underage by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Yemen is a signatory.

With no legal minimum age for marriage, a study by Sanaa University found that in some of Yemen’s regions half of all girls are married before the age of 15.

“The greatest problem facing Yemeni women today is child marriages,” said Wafa Ali of the Yemeni Women’s Union. “These early marriages rob the girl of the right to a normal childhood and education. The girls are forced to have children before their bodies are fully grown.”

Many girls suffer repeated miscarriages or end up with complications brought on by the trauma of forced sex, said Dr Arwa Elrabee, a leading gynaecologist.

In April a local women’s rights group reported that 12-year-old bride Elham Shuee had died three days after marrying a man in his 20s. The girl suffered a rupture of the womb caused by sex, said Majed al-Mathhaji, a spokesman for the Sisters Arab Forum.

Last September, another 12-year-old, Fawziya Abdullah Youssef, bled to death during three days of child birth – her body, doctors said afterwards, was simply too small to cope. (Read on …)

Somebody is making big money from this. Some of these kids are very young four and five years old.

Trafficking in Persons Report 2010
YEMEN (Tier 2 Watch List)

Yemen is a country of origin and, to a much lesser extent, a transit and destination country for women and children subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically forced labor and forced prostitution. Yemeni children, mostly boys, migrate across the northern border with Saudi Arabia, to the Yemeni cities of Aden and Sana’a, or – to a lesser extent – to Oman, and are forced to work primarily as beggars, but also for domestic servitude or forced labor in small shops. Some of these children are subjected to commercial sexual exploitation in transit or once they arrive in Saudi Arabia by traffickers, border patrols, other security officials, and their employers. The government and local NGOs estimate that there are hundreds of thousands of children in forced labor in Yemen. (Read on …)

Quite a logical manifesto by one of Yemen’s leading female activists

Marriage of the Small Girls, and the Absence of Religious Renewal and Reform

By / Tawakkol Abdul Salam Karman*

In our jurisprudence heritage there is a wide place for harmony and compatibility with the claims of banning the marriage of small girls and determining the age of eighteen as a minimum for marriage for girls, and this is exactly what is deemed by the Maliki school.. It is exactly what was transformed by Ibn Abbas, whom he said 23 years old, and 25 said by others, and who knows maybe there is space for what is higher.

In light of the broad claims by engaging the need to complete the process of religious reform and renewal, it is painful that we find that the horizon is narrower than the eye of a needle; since it was supposed to accomplish many of jurisprudence that achieve urgent requirements of the times .. and provide evidence that Islam is valid for all times and places. They are glued deep in the heritage and are looking for fatwas that are closer to the shackles and handcuffs which ,in the best situations, are no longer valid since hundreds of years.

The following day to the protest of Aleeman University in front of the Yemeni parliament opposed to enact a law forbids marriage of small girls, it was quoted by the news that ((a handicapped girl had been raped by several persons)), unless they will not hear in the future that there is a similar demonstration will emerge to claim the application of the punishments of God in the perpetrators, so I will claim from now, that the law of God has nothing to do with all this drivel, and what is required is a show of force and political presence, which is closer to the bad exploitation of religion for instantaneous political purposes.

* Anomaly and the psychological deviation (Read on …)

Update: the opposing view

LAT Sheik Mohammed Hamzi, an official of the Islamist Yemeni opposition party Islaah and the imam of the Al-Rahman mosque in the Yemeni capital of Sana, is one of those who staunchly opposes a legal ban on child marriage… “I am against the child marriage law because it restrains the freedom of others. When a certain age [for marriage] is set, it violates the rights of others. For example, imagine a young man of 13 or 14 years of age who wants to have sex. … This is a violation of his rights,” Sheik Hamzi told The Times in an interview at his Sana home last week.

Wow, how warped is that thinking? Boys have a right to have sex whenever they have the urge, but girls do not have the right not to be raped. On to the original post, an article published by the Yemen Times:

There is no law in Yemeni legislation that defines a minimum age for marriage. However, there are Islamic legislations that prevent men from forcing their wives into intercourse. Renowned religious scholar Mohammed Hassan said that the Islamic Jurisprudence prohibits forced intercourse between the husband and wife.

“If a woman is forced to bed by her husband, she should know that he is committing a sin and should be punished according the jurisprudence. She should not think that Islam discriminates against women, it is the sole act of this man,” he said.

He emphasized that, in Islam, marriage is a relationship based on kindness and empathy as read in the Roman’s Chapter in the Quran verse 21: “And among His signs is that He created spouses for you from yourselves for you to gain rest from them, and kept love and mercy between yourselves; indeed in this are signs for the people who ponder.”

“The essence of the marital relationship is passion and the husband should make his wife feel that he wants more than just her body for early pleasure but also her companionship and emotions, and so should the wife. Aggressiveness and violence in the bedroom is not acceptable in Islam,” he added.

The Prophet Mohammed (MPBH) had said: “Do not fall onto your wife like an animal, and have a messenger between the two of you.” He was asked: “What is this messenger?” He replied: “The kiss and the conversation.”

This is from the guy who said women cant talk and remember at the same time. At least I think thats what he said because I can’t remember now that I’m talking. Sheik Zindani has a new statement that nine is a fine age to marry and any one who supports a ban on child rape is an apostate. Its not a small thing in Yemen to be takfired, and it comes with a level of risk. First though, the news that a 13 year old child died from bleeding four days into her marriage. The tragedy reminds me of the 12 year old who died in childbirth after four days of painful labor.

WaPo Some of Yemen’s most influential Islamic leaders, including one the U.S. says mentored Osama bin Laden, have declared supporters of a ban on child brides to be apostates.

The religious decree, issued Sunday, deeply imperils efforts to salvage legislation that would make it illegal for those under the age of 17 to marry.

The practice is widespread in Yemen and has been particularly hard to discourage in part because of the country’s gripping poverty – bride-prices in the hundreds of dollars are especially difficult for poor families to pass up. (Read on …)

Yemeni film maker chronicles Akhdam women’s struggle for life and dignity in Yemen at HUB, click here for vid.

“Breaking the Silence” chronicles the lives and injustices against the Akhdam women in Yemen. The ‘Akhdam’ , singular Khadem, meaning “servant” in Arabic, are a social group in Yemen, distinct from the majority by their darker skin and African descent. Although they are Arabic-speaking and practicing Muslims, they are regarded as non-Arabs and designated as a low caste group, frequently discriminated against and confined to unskilled and menial labor. In a society already riddled with patriarchy and poverty, the distain and discrimination against the Akhdam renders Akhdam women easy targets of violence and abuse. Akhdam women are subject to hate-based attacks and sexual assaults without any type of legal or social recourse.

This video, produced by Sisters Arab Forum for Human Rights and WITNESS, featuring the stories and voices of these three women, Haddah, Qobol, and Om Ali recounting their stories of violence, injustice and forced poverty uncover the legacy of discrimination the ‘Akhdam’ live with daily and the necessity for urgent action against these atrocities.

WFP hunger hotspots: Yemen – 20 Nov 2009
Source: United Nations World Food Programme (WFP)
20 Nov 2009

Lack of funding has kept the CP on hold since June; under the HFP EMOP, 40 percent of mothers and children will not receive nutrition assistance for six of the 12 planned months. Overall, limited and late funding will leave 1.4 of nearly 1.7 million beneficiaries of the CP without assistance in November.

Following a three-week blockade of supply routes to Sa’ada town in October, WFP has been able to re-supply. Planned distribution to 55,500 IDPs in the town and camps is expected to begin 17 November. (Read on …)

On the average half of kids even have access to a school in walking distance, and for girls that access is even more limited by the shortage of female teachers. (Related issues include corruption in schools, the withholding of teachers pay, punative teacher transfers, and the failure to fully implement the 2005 Wages Strategy, all of which will become more severe as the oil money runs out.) The original press release and contact info from Seyaj is below the fold and I’ll add the raw data:

HODEIDAH, 19 November 2009 (IRIN) – Nearly half of children in rural areas of the western Yemeni governorate of Hodeidah, have no access to basic education, according to a new report by the Seyaj Organization for Childhood Protection (SOCP) and the Yemen News Agency.

A survey was conducted on a random sample of 3,249 boys and girls from 1,542 families in the districts of Lihyah, Zahrah and Beit al-Faqih, said Fahd al-Sabri, lead author of the report.

The survey results, announced on 18 November, indicate that 45 percent of boys and 52 percent of girls in the 6-15 age group have no access to basic education – for several reasons, including vulnerability of their families, lack of schools and teachers, or schools being far away from their homes, al-Sabri told IRIN. (Read on …)

There’s a list no one can publish that names dozens of women who went into a specific jail and then had a baby more than a year later. The abuse (is that word strong enough?) of female prisoners is systemic and in some areas, organized. Its really very depressing, some of these are young girls.

Update: The post seems to be generating some response, including shock, so here’s a bit of our earlier coverage of the topic: Women Raped and Babies Sold from Jail, a report by the Sajeen Organization; Rape Victim Victimized a Second Time by the State, the cases of Susan M.S. Al-Mudhla’ and Anisa al-Shuaibi; Witness Testimony from Yemeni Prisons, heartbreaking stuff there; and CID Investigated on Rape Charge, not much happened…

The following is a bit from the current report from the Yemen Times:

Hodeida jails house large-scale human rights abuses, including rape, illegal detentions, overcrowding and shortages of food and water, according to a new report prepared by the National Forum for Human Rights.

The worst abuses take place when male guards are in charge of women, said Abdulhafidh Mu’jab, who prepared the report after a team of nine lawyers toured Hodeida detention centers.

“Women located in these unsafe places encourages violations or rapes,” he said.

And many women in Hodeida are detained before trial longer than is legal or humane, in facilities that are inadequate for female prisoners, he added.

“They should work on procedures to release women from prison and makes these procedures as fast as possible,” Mu’jab said.

According to Khalid Ayash, who heads the organization, women do not to report sexual assaults in jails because they fear the severe social stigma associated with rape in Yemen. (Read on …)