Armies of Liberation

News Yemen

The report, published by the Supreme Women Council along with the Women’s National Committee on “Status of Yemeni Women 2007”, said that “the equitable participation remains a challenge due to traditional cultures, in addition to challenge of motherhood, giving birth, work obligations.”

Figuring out the number of women’s contributions to economic field, the report said that the percentage of working women has deceased in the period of 2005-2007 to 10.5% compared to 24% in 1999.

It found that the percentage of being paid working women in urban areas between 2004 and 2006 was 14 percent while in rural area it was only 2 percent. These percentages indicate lack of work opportunities available for women for social reasons as well as due to insufficient development plans, said the report.

The National

Two decades ago, women in Yemen used to adorn their hair with the fragrant leaves of the al mashaqir, a traditional flower. Today, the flower is banned and women’s faces are covered with a veil.

Yemen’s move to a more conservative Islamic society has coincided with a drastic reduction in women’s rights, which is supported and even perpetuated by negative references to women in popular folklore, researchers said.

“These flowers are no longer there because women’s faces are all veiled. I do miss them for they stand for women’s freedom and respect,” said Arwa Othman, the director of the House of Folklore, a non-governmental group that organised a workshop last month titled: ‘Al Mashaqir: Violated Femininity in Folklore’.

(Read on …)

Yemen Observer

The newly established vice and virtue committee elected Sheikh Abdulmajid al-Zindani as a president of the committee, Sheikh Sadiq Bin Abdullah Bin Hussein al-Ahmar vice president and Sheikh Hamoud al-Tharihi as a Secretary General, said Sheikh Hamoud al-Tharihi.

(Read on …)

Having played the terrorism card to exhaustion, Saleh plays the religion card with some trick to divide the Islah party, something to bolster his political capital at a time of weakness. Whatever it is, its a furtherance of the growing Talabanization of Yemen. This is an interesting post by a Yemeni woman entitled “Yemen, Sexual Harassment and Women”, who writes:

The problem in Yemen and Saudi in my opinion stems from the sexual objectification of women and a culture that views them as inferior, not only are they physically weaker but intellectually and morally inferior….The strict segregation is part of the cause as well, it creates lack of interaction and familiarity between the sexes. I consider it unhealthy that relatives for example cannot mingle with each other, instead females retreat hastily in another room if a man is approaching without even a greeting. Curtains are used to separate the sexes when talking to each other, those situations sexualise a perfectly normal environment. Any interaction between the sexes is deemed to be sexual.

The above author concludes , “It’s important that we strike a middle and balanced ground in order to have a healthy society and when pursuing virtue not achieve the opposite.”

An article from the Yemen Oserver notes the attendees of the conference were mostly al-Iman students, so the whole thing is looking like an al-Zindani creation, including the declaration that any women in the work force will lead to chaos in society and sex in the streets. Meanwhile the vice in Yemeni society is concentrated among its elite and leaders who steal food daily from the mouths of starving children. They are the ones who need moral guardians on an hourly basis. As the Italians say, a fish rots from its head. And of course and predictably, the conference focused on villifying journalists in particular.

The Yemen Observer: An alliance of Yemeni religious scholars and tribal leaders has decided to watch and safeguard the morals and values of the society through holding annual meetings rather than permanent committees, which were strongly criticized before being established.

Under the slogan “It’s the guards of virtue who will protect the ship from drowning,” the clerics and tribesmen – the self-appointed guardians of virtue – decided to hold a yearly conference, called “The meeting of promoting virtue and combating vice.” They backed down from a previous proposal submitted to President Ali Abdullah Saleh last May, for establishing virtue committees (religious police) and for monitoring the activities of individuals and institutions by banning any vice-related activity such as selling alcoholic drinks, night clubs, hotels, restaurants, or massage centers.

The clerics and tribesmen retracted from establishing their committees of promoting virtue and combating vice after strong criticisms from journalists, writers and politicians, who viewed the job of such committees as the responsibility of the state.

No single woman attended the one-day meeting held on Tuesday July 15 by the tribesmen and the Sunni religious scholars. The meeting was chaired by the tribal leader, Sadeq Abdullah al-Ahmar – sheikh of Yemen’s most influential tribe, the Hashed – and cleric Abdul Majeed al-Zandani, who is accused by the United States of supporting terrorism.

Most of the nearly two thousands male attendees were students of Al-Eyman University, a religious university run and owned by al-Zandani. The rest of the attendees were Salafi clerics and tribesmen. No prominent politicians from the Islamist party Islah attended the meeting except Sheikh al-Zandani, who has his own Salafi current inside the party. The politicians of Islah refused the demand of establishing committees for virtue, saying that it was only a political trick from the president Saleh to divide the Islah party, the largest opposition party on the one hand, and divide the opposition alliance which includes the Islah Islamists, Socialists and Nasserites on the other.

“Talking about committees for virtue has political reasons behind, aiming to mix the cards and confuse political life in an official attempt to divert the attention from its helplessness and corruption of the government, and thus holding others responsible for its faults including weakening the effectiveness of the official bodies and working outside the constitution and law,” said the alliance of the three parties in a statement issued three days before the meeting of the clerics and tribesmen.

(Read on …)

ISA:

Text of report by London-based independent newspaper Al-Quds al- Arabi website on 17 July
[Report by Khalid al-Hammadi in Sanaa: "Analysts consider the formation of the Virtue Commission in Yemen as a sign of the weakness of the state or intended to divert the attention of the public away from its suffering prior to the parliamentary elections; the Commission for the Propagation of Virtue or the 'Yemeni Al- Mutawa'ah' declares war on prostitution, alcoholic beverages, drugs, and child trade"]

The commission to protect virtue in Yemen held its first conference in Sanaa yesterday. The conference -that was held with official backing -was attended by a large gathering of senior religious scholars and intellectuals from various parts of Yemen with a noticeable absence of the leaders of the opposition parties, including the Islamist Reform Party. The conferees decided to change the name of the commission from the Virtue Commission to the Commission for the Propagation of Virtue thus becoming identical in character and tasks to the Saudi Commission for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice that is popularly known as the “Al- Mutawa’ah”.

(Read on …)

Beautiful women who work outside the house will drive society to chaos. What does that mean? Men and woman have no self-restraint and are consumed only with thinking about sex? Are we talking about animals or humans here? How insulting to everybody.

Mareb Press:

The Yemeni Women Union condemned today the religious decree issued by the religious scholars about quota system.

The YWU accused the religious scholars who issued that decree of defaming the women and offending their honor, dignity and decency.

The YWU mentioned some Quranic verses in support of their viewpoint. Allah says “Those who persecute or draw into temptation, the believers men and women, and do not turn in repentance, will have the penalty of hell”.

The YWU said the statement of the religious scholars is reducing the value and importance of the great role of women in building the society.

The statement added that everything in this booklet is contradicting with Islam which gives women absolute equality with men, said the statement denying any superiority for men over women citing from Quran “Mankind, we created you from a single (pair) of a male and female, and made you into nations and tribes that you may know each other, verily the most honoured of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous of you and Allah has full knowledge and is well-acquainted.”

“The women quota contradicts with our religion,” said the fatwa in the booklet. “Women racing to get out of the houses and be mixed with men in the places of work showing their beauty for all men, will lead to non-marriage relations, relations of lovers, and continuation of these relations will make the society drop to sexual chaos, loss of the decency, spread of adultery and illegal kids,” the booklet said. “We are with the equality of religious responsibilities of men and women, but we are not with the equality of employment of the roles of men and women,” said the scholars.

Smarter than God, maybe we should cut off our ears also.

Saba

[04 July 2008]

SANA’A, July 04 (Saba)- A recent study has showed a quarter of Yemeni women have been subjected to circumcision and 71.4% of the Yemeni women favored female circumcision while 48% of the Yemeni men support continuing the process of the circumcision.

Among five provinces of the county, Hodeidah and Hadramout provinces were ranked first in the number of the circumcised women by 97.3%, while the prevalence of female genital mutilation in the provinces of Aden and Maharah reached 96.5% in each and in the capital Sana’a has hit 45.5%, according to the study.

The study was conducted by the Centre of Gender Studies and Research in University of Sana’a, UNICEF and Yemen Women Union.

What a miserable life for these little girls. Child marriage is a significant element in the cycle of poverty as the article suggests and is condoned by the religious hardliners who are a pillar of support for the regime. A nine year old bride of a thirty year old man is an overt victim of torture and rape, socially a thing not a person and certainly not an a person with rights equal to that of her husband.

IHT: JIBLA, Yemen: One morning last month, Arwa Abdu Muhammad Ali walked out of her husband’s house here and ran to a local hospital, where she complained that he had been beating and sexually abusing her for eight months.

That alone would be surprising in Yemen, a deeply conservative Arab society where family disputes tend to be solved privately. What made it even more unusual was that Arwa was 9 years old.

Within days, Arwa - a tiny, delicate-featured girl - had become a celebrity in Yemen, where child marriage is common but has rarely been exposed in public. She was the second child bride to come forward in less than a month; in April, a 10-year-old named Nujood Ali had gone by herself to a courthouse to demand a divorce, generating a landmark legal case.

Together, the two girls’ stories have helped spur a movement to put an end to child marriage, which is increasingly seen as a crucial part of the cycle of poverty in Yemen and other developing countries.

(Read on …)

7th Space reports on Yemeni progress or lask thereof in areas of woman’s empowerment.

While praising Yemen today for being among the first countries to have ratified the Women’s Convention and for having updated its citizenship laws in women’s favour, the Committee monitoring countries’ compliance with the Convention expressed concern about the prevalence of underage marriages, including tourist marriages, polygamy, domestic violence and negative sexual stereotypes, and questioned the Yemeni Government’s political will to implement the treaty.

Yemen ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women in 1984, without any substantive reservations, but it had far to go to achieve full equality between the sexes, experts of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women agreed as they considered Yemen’s sixth periodic report.

(Read on …)

Talking to women in public: haram. It leads to sex in the street according to the fanatics.

Student attacked for walking with women
Friday 06 June 2008 / Mareb Press

A 23-year-old university student said he was beaten up for walking with a female friend in Aden in May.

“A bearded man attacked and slapped me while I was walking with my girl colleague, saying it’s haram to talk to women in the street,” said the student.

The student was going home from the Aden law college along with two boys and three girls when a group of religious men intercepted them and had a fight with them over “walking and talking” with girls in the street.

In an interview with Gulf News this week, the student, who asked not to be named, said: “When I asked the men why are you doing this, one of them rudely said, ‘Do you want us to wait until you have sex with her in the street?’”

(Read on …)

Good topic. FYI I didn’t write this article and Jane’s is not me. Jane’s Intelligence Digest is published by Janes Information Group, which produces independent publications on the defense, security, transport and law enforcement sectors. Jane’s Information Group and associated publications like Janes Defense Weekly are in no way associated with the British military or the US Pentagon and are not published by any government. (D’oh, the regime idjits misunderstooded.)

An important point raised by this article is the collusion between criminal elements in Iraq and in Yemen, and the extent to which the smuggling pipelines of all sorts are within the domain of officials in the Yemeni adminstration. There are well established transportation routes between Yemen and Iraq upon which persons and contraband pass both ways.

In the last three years, Yemen has become a centre for trafficking Iraqi women.

In Yemen, this has focused on transhipment; the women are brought to Yemen and then sold to clients in other countries, mainly the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) countries.

A number of factors have contributed to Yemen’s development as a centre for human trafficking. Yemen is relatively close to the GCC countries and the Yemeni police are either unwilling or unable to stop or impede the traffickers.

Trafficking not only exacts a terrible cost in human terms but also contributes to the continued instability of Iraq. The amount of money being generated through the sale of these women is substantial. While most of the money generated through the trafficking operation remains in Yemen, some of the money is returned to Iraq where it helps fund additional criminal activity.

Given the continued instability in Iraq and the lack of enforcement in Yemen, it seems certain that even more women will be sold into sexual slavery this year.

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.

YP

Just weeks after the country was shocked to hear about Nujood, the 8-year-old bride, who demanded the court to divorce her from her husband, today comes a much shameful case, as Arwa, a 7-year-old girl got married to a 35-year-old man in Ibb governorate.

Such cases give the country shame that it cannot handle and gives a very bad image to the culture of Yemen, which many seem to be proud of.

Why would a girl in such a young age get married? Is it because Yemen has run out of women, or do people who marry such young girls do it for a passion.

Yes, I agree that it did happen in the past and over a thousand years ago, but that is not an excuse. You cannot compare women today to women in the past. I could not believe what I was being informed when I heard of Arwa’s case, and what is surprising to me is sources mentioned that the girl did not have a problem with the marriage. Of course she would not have a problem, because she does not know what she is getting herself in. All she sees is that she is given gold, gifts, and jewelry, but does not know what awaits her.

For the sake of our culture, growth of our country , and most importantly the future of our young girls, lets stand together in ending such marriages that will eventually destroy the future of young girls year before it even begins.

UN official reveals Yemen’s urgent need of 5 thousand midwives
Tuesday, 06-May-2008
Almotamar.net - Public Health and Population Undersecretary Jamila al-Raee stressed Tuesday the necessity of paying attention to midwives working in the rural villages due to their important role in reducing fatality of mothers and children. She affirmed readiness of the ministry to approve the employment description of the midwives in addition to beginning soon a national project for training and qualification of midwives.

Al-Raee remarks came in her address to the ceremony given Tuesday by the National Society for Midwives in Yemen.

On his part the representative of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in Yemen Hans Obdein mentioned in his address that Yemen urgently needs 5 thousand midwives of the total needed number of 20 thousand midwives to face expected averages of mothers fatalities. He said that the latest statistics point out that there is one midwife for every 12 thousand women in the governorates of Yemen. He said in the capital there is one midwife for every 900 women, pointing out that is reflected on raising the average of mother fatalities to 365 women out of every one-hundred thousand live birth.
Chairwoman of the National Society of the Yemeni Midwives Huda Jahlan said the midwives are the first key for offering reproductive health services and the health of the mother and the newly born as well as the health of the family. She said that since its establishment in 2004 the society managed to increase the number of midwives joining the society from 117 to 241 in December in 2007.

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 …)

A GONGO its called, not an NGO but a Goverment Operated Non-Governmental Organization. He’s talking about the proposed quota for women. It would be good if he got Uncle Ali to appoint any women to governmental positions or in the GPC. Currently there’s two ministers. The GPC in the last election nominated women for 1% of candidates and physically harassed the independent women candidates.

al-Motamar

Chairman of the Progress & Advancement Forum (PAF) in Yemen Yahya Mohammed Abdullah Saleh said Sunday the initiative of President Ali Abdullah Saleh regarding empowering the women to practice their political rights through allocation of a quota amounting to 15% at the parliament is an important step. He added in case of its success and achievement it will open more spacious horizons for the society in general and the Yemeni women in particular. It will enable them exercise their tights effectively away from slogans that made this question mere decors in their political and electoral programmes.

In a symposium the PAF held Sunday in participation with other organisations with the aim of supporting the women in the upcoming elections, he affirmed the importance of drawing a dividing line between empty words and truthfulness and to associate words with action with regard to empowering the women to practice their political and social rights.

(Read on …)

Yemen Times

SANA’A, April-13 — Preventing female circumcision and pre-marriage medical tests evoked turmoil and disagreement among Parliament members (MPs) in last week’s session.

The session ended with a unanimous agreement to cancel the term 3, which would prevent female circumcision, and delay the discussion of pre-marriage tests.

The two terms were part of a draft written by the Safe Motherhood Law Project, and introduced by the heath committee inside Parliament.

Najeb Ghanem, the Chairman of the Health Committee in Parliament, expressed his sorrow over the way Parliament discussed the two issues.

“These two topics are very important for guaranteeing women’s rights in Yemen,” he commented in a phone call to the Yemen Times after the session.

(Read on …)

Almotamar.net - An information source at the General People’s Congress (GPC) ruling party on Tuesday expressed the GPC solidarity and sympathy with the Yemeni writer and political activist Ms Tawakul Karman against the threat of killing she has been exposed to in addition immoral words on the phone; as it was reported in media instruments.

The source affirmed that differences in opinion in the national arena whatever they were must not slide to this immoral level of personal assailing and insult that is inharmonious with religious, ethical and human values as well as with bases of democratic freedom and opinion and other opinion.

The GPC information source asked all to stand against such inconvenient practices and asked the security authorities to take their measures for providing protection for the activist Tawakul Karman and hold accountable those who carried out such irresponsible and condemned action.

Yemen is ranked number one in the world in gender inequality. One study found that rural women work 17 hours a day on average. Domestic abuse is not considered a crime nor is it socially unacceptable. Women are required by law to submit to their husband’s sexual demands-ie, there is no such thing as marital rape in Yemen. Rape is a largely under-reported crime because social mores blame the victim.

The laws do not criminalize underage marriage. In rural areas, the marriage age for females is often 10 to 14. In cities, the marriage age rises to a whopping 14 to 16. Children over the age of seven automatically are awarded to the husband in a divorce, and many wives stay in an abusive marriage in order not to lose their children. Efforts to change the laws are repeatedly thwarted by the government which relies on the support of Salafi hardliners in order to retain power. Some fundamentalists advance the idea that women should leave their homes only twice, once to marry and once to go to the graveyard.

Women often have problems taking possession of their legal inheritances, which are confiscated by male relatives. Genital female mutilation is a regular practice, found mostly in the countryside. One method includes placing hot stones on an infant girl’s genitalia for several weeks. Women in the work place face discrimination and harassment. Few women work outside the home, except for domestic farming which is the primarily an unpaid position. Women less than fully veiled face discrimination and harassment. Female activists are regularly slandered by the government media as immoral.

Female illiteracy is over 50% and highest in rural areas. One reason girls drop out of school is that they are needed to haul water, which is in short supply. A shortage of female teachers and segregated classrooms is another factor. Several schools for girls have been attacked by extremists who oppose the idea of education for women. The level of medical care for pregnant and postpartum women is extremely low, with many women never seeing a doctor and delivering with the help of neighbors. Newborns die at high rate, often from diseases like tetanus which are preventable with a vaccine.

In sum, women have little legal rights. The laws in existence are infrequently enforced. Women are expected to work and serve men. They have few opportunities to develop their education, talents or job skills or to achieve financial independence.

Now on to our story, an eight year old girl went to court, alone, to seek a divorce from her 30 year old husband who was repeatedly raping her. Kudos to the Yemen Times for running the story.

SANA’A, April 9 - An eight-year-old girl decided last week to go the Sana’a West Court to prosecute her father, who forced her to marry a 30-year-old man…”My father beat me and told me that I must marry this man, and if I did not, I would be raped and no law and no sheikh in this country would help me. I refused but I couldn’t stop the marriage,” Nojoud Nasser told the Yemen Times. “I asked and begged my mother, father, and aunt to help me to get divorced. They answered, ‘We can do nothing. If you want you can go to court by yourself.’ So this is what I have done,” she said.

Nasser said that she was exposed to sexual abuse and domestic violence by her husband. “He used to do bad things to me, and I had no idea as to what a marriage is. I would run from one room to another in order to escape, but in the end he would catch me and beat me and then continued to do what he wanted. I cried so much but no one listened to me. One day I ran away from him and came to the court and talked to them. Whenever I wanted to play in the yard he beat me and asked me to go to the bedroom with him.”

Read the rest.

Yemen Post

Yemeni Parliament approved amending the law numbered 25 of 1991 concerning the insurances as obligatorily put pension age at 60 and while the pension age for women was optionally fixed for 55.

The amendments allow the husband to have both his pension and his wife; however, it did not allow him to have more than one in case he is married to more than one wife and he has the right to select which pension to have with his.

Yemen Observer

Principals of all girls’ schools in Sana’a staged a sit-in at the 7th of July school on Wednesday, condemning the attack and at the same time condemning the silence of official authorities and the teachers syndicate about the previous attack that targeted 7th of July school principal Shafia’a al-Seragi. Supporters of al-Seragi said that this silence encouraged the terrorists to launch the second brutal attack.

“Any man that beats a woman, whether she is a teacher, a principal or even an ordinary woman is a coward, as are the officials that close their eyes to violence committed against women,” said the principal of al-Nizari girls’ school.

Three principals of girls’ schools, including al-Seragi, have been attacked in the past two weeks. The three attacked principals are believed to be political and social activists that promote girls’ education and the adoption of new educational methods that prohibit violence in schools.

In addition to the beating of Shafia’a al-Seragi by three men, a principal of a school in Hodeidah was beaten by five women from the Islah Islamic party and also received threats of having her house blown up. A third principal’s car was stolen and had its seats and tires stripped. Her house electricity was cut off by unidentified persons at the same time that the other two female principals were attacked.

Yemen Times

Reviewing the legislative system of Yemen for the first time, one gets the impression that the laws are well-drafted and ensure the rights of both men and women. Upon analyzing and dissecting those laws and regulations, one will inevitably realize that certain elements of this system, which regulates private and public relationships, involve a considerable degree of discrimination against women. This conclusion is supported by the legal teams formed by the National Women’s Committee (NWC), which have been working since 2000 to examine Yemeni laws for gender bias.

The NWC wanted to ensure this system complies with the Islamic tenets and principles as the main source of legislation, with the Constitution and with the international conventions ratified by the Republic of Yemen, particularly the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). The legal review teams came up with proof that there is flagrant discrimination embedded in some provisions, most severely in the Personal Status law, the Nationality law and the Penalty law.

The Personal Status law does not specify an appropriate age of marriage, which as a result, inadvertently permits early marriage among young females – an especially common problem in rural areas. Early marriage in turn affects girls’ ability to continue their education. With early marriage comes early pregnancies, which can cause problems like fistula (a condition that causes incontinence) or even to death during childbirth.

(Read on …)

SANAA, 9 March 2008 (IRIN) - Yemeni women, especially those living in rural areas, continue to have high illiteracy rates, insufficient medical care and face gender discrimination, specialists said at an event held in Sanaa on 8 March to mark International Women’s Day 2008.

Lack of education was seen as the driving factor behind women’s gender inequality in Yemen.

The National Women Committee (NWC), a government body, presented a draft report on the status of women at the event. Entitled Women’s Status from a Gender Perspective 2007, the report said 51 percent of girls aged 6-14 were not enrolled in elementary schools.

“This high dropout rate would represent a fertile source for illiteracy. There is no law to make education obligatory and free for all age groups,” the report said.

According to NWC, the report will soon be released officially.

The report added that the rate of enrolment for girls in elementary schools was 54 percent compared to 72 percent for boys. Linking the rate of female school dropouts to insufficient numbers of female teachers, the report said there were some 44,000 female teachers in the country compared to about 146,000 male teachers in the 2005/6 academic year.

(Read on …)

Mareb Press:

At least 220 women were either killed, injured, attacked or detained during a four-year sporadic armed confrontation between the government troops and rebels in Sa’ada north of Yemen, a women’s rights group said on Tuesday.

The recently established organisation, Defa’a Movement, listed the 220 women by name and incidents in a press release issued on the occasion of the World Women’s Day.

As many as 71 women were killed, 67 injured, 59 attacked and 22 were detained during the period from mid 2004 till end of 2007. These figures do not present all cases, the organisation said, because many families preferred not to reveal the sufferings of their women.

The violations registered by the organisation included killing, detention, torture, expelling from house, plundering properties, threats and discrimination.

The organisation blamed mainly the government troops, tribesmen loyal to government and Salafi religious groups for the sufferings of those women.

The organisation called for neutral investigation into such violations, and for giving fair compensations to all war-affected women.

A Qatari-brokered deal is being implemented now to end the war between the government troops and the rebels.

She is related to presidential advisor Abdulkarim al-Eryani somehow. I forget how: sister, niece something.

Information Undersecretary criticises organisations’ dealing with woman issues
Tuesday, 19-February-2008
almotamar.net - Chairwoman of Yemen Women Federation Ramziya al-Eryany on Monday called for fighting media instruments that have rendered the woman goods for promoting commercial products and criticised styling the woman’s image and dealing with her issues in a reversed manner.

Al-Eryany also demanded the media the communication of accurate information to the new generation, indicating that her call for supporting issues of the woman was governed by religious and national values and constants which cannot be violated.

During a workshop on supporting the issues of the woman in the media organized by the Yemen Women Federation and Care organisation, al-Eryany criticised the media instruments that deformed the image of the woman in Yemen and the Arab countries.

She said the Islam religion preserves the woman’s decency and honoured her and made her equal to the man and an example for all non-Muslim women.

At the same workshop the Information Undersecretary Fathiya Abdulwasie stressed the necessity of sowing the correct concepts on the woman that the media should deal with accordingly. She indicated that what concerns her ministry in this question is represented in presenting all the issues preoccupying the society via offering a balanced image of the woman out of the national and religious constants.

Ms Abdulwasie affirmed her ministry’s activation of partnership with the civil society organisations but expressed her regret that the civil society organisations did not deal in depth with the issues of the woman and in many cases are sufficing their interest in news coverage of the woman’s activities, calling in this regard fore clarity of the media message and drawing up plans for the audience and decision-makers.

Yemen Observer:

Yemen ranked 128th in the latest Global Gender Gap Report 2007 among the countries that have the smallest gap between male and female.

According to the report, the country with the smallest gender gap acquires the most number of points. The Global Gender Gap Index, introduced by the World Economic Forum last year, aims to be a tool for benchmarking and tracking global gender-based inequalities on economic, political, education- and health-based criteria.

(Read on …)

I’ve seen estimates of 50 million by 2050, but that may be based on optimum reproduction rates. If things stay the way they are, apparently its 90 million by 2045. But thats what happens when girls get married at 14 and have an average of seven kids.

SANA’A, Dec. 15 — In the Fourth National Conference for Population Policy, held under the theme, “Toward further implementation of a population policy,” participants stressed the necessity of providing family planning and reproductive health services in all health care centers.

Some of the papers reviewed warned against the risk of increased population growth, indicating that UN estimates show that if population growth in Yemen continues to increase at the present rate, the population will increase from its current 22.4 million to 29.9 million in 2015, then to 43 million in 2025, 62 million in 2035 and 90 million in 2045, finally reaching 108.6 million in 2050. However, the reports mentioned that if Yemen achieves the national population policy goals, estimated population growth will decline by 7 million in 2025, 16 million in 2035, and 49 million in 2050, accomplishing a balance between population growth and available resources and allowing Yemen to achieve its millennium objectives.

Studies also indicated that the annual 3 percent population growth rate is one of the key challenges facing development efforts. They also showed that Yemen is categorized as one of the least developed countries in human resource, ranked 174 out of 184 countries. According to the studies, poverty levels have progressively increased, from 19 percent in 1992 to 34 percent in 1999, and lastly 34.4 percent in 2005.

They also advised utilizing resolutions of free of charge health care units in addition to family planning consultations, encouraging women to breastfeed babies naturally, and increasing efforts to increase society awareness about prenatal care.

(Read on …)

Yemen Observer

The women’s division of Sana’a Central Prison is full of women that should not be there but are, due to deficiencies in the courts and prosecution procedures, according to Mutaher Ali Naji, general manager of Sana’a Central Prison.

From among 57 female detainees in the prison, there are 15 accused of acts of shame or crimes against morality. Human rights organizations report that women are frequently subjected to arbitrary detention for crimes against “morals”. Some of the prisoners are accused of the Khalwa crime of being alone with a man who is not a relative. This has previously been considered a crime according to Islamic Shaira, however the new amended law of 1994 does not mention it and there is no clear law stating it as a crime.

“In Sana’a there are more than 35 prosecutions sending women to detention in Sana’a Central Prison,” Mutahar said. “Sometimes they send the women even before ending investigation procedures,” he added.

Ahlam (whose name has been changed for her privacy) rode in a car with a man who was not her relative. She was hoping to spend some time enjoying herself, but she ended up arguing with the man. Police caught them, and after few hours of investigation in penal prosecution, she was sent to prison. Another detainee, 20 years of age, went with her two friends (one of them married) to a “suspicious” place. They ended up in prison as well.

“In a conservative society such a thing will mean the end of a woman,” Husnia al-Qadri, head of the women’s research center at Sana’a university, said. “It could destroy the woman’s future as well as the reputation of her family. The worst thing is that women learn things in prison that can make them criminals,” she added.

Ameera, 22, is accused of adultery and is currently in the women’s section of Sana’a Central Prison . The one with whom she committed adultery is in prison as well. “He is the only one in the world who loves me and knows my values. I want to see him only,” she said. To Major Najeeba, a security official in the prison who informed her that her brother had come to visit her, she said, “I don’t want to see him. I don’t want to see any one of them. Don’t push me or try to convince me. Seeing them will just turn me crazy and tire me.”

If Ameera married the man that she was accused of being with, the charges would be dropped and she could get out of prison. “She should not be in prison,” Major Najeeba says. “There should be someone or some organization that could help her.”

According to the penal code, the maximum punishment for these crimes is one year, but in a report for the year 2000, several cases are documented of women convicted of zina that have spent more than four years in prison.

Khaleed al-Ansi, a lawyer for the Hood Organization for Human Rights, says that there are a lot of unjust procedures in prosecutions and the courts.

Fatima killed her husband because he had tried to rape her daughter. In the court session, the daughter changed her story under pressures from the family and the medical examination approved that the girl was still a virgin.

“The court sentenced her to death,” al-Ansi said, “neglecting the fact that the woman was trying to protect her daughter.”

Sonia stole gold. She has spent two years in prison where she delivered her son. She has served the period of her sentence but she is unable to get out of prison until she repays the value of the gold. Her husband is also in prison because of helping her. Sonia does not have money and there is no one to help her.

“I hope that there are parties who could help Sonia and other such cases,” Major Najeeba said.

Fatima is in jail for killing her husband with help from her brother. Her brother was sentenced to death and executed seven years ago. Fatima was also sentenced to death but she could be released if her son Walid would forgive her, but he refuses.

“We have tried to contact him to convince him despite the fact that it is not our work,” Mutaher said. “There is no one else to do that.”

Shadh Naser, Fatima’s lawyer, said that the Supreme Court sentenced Fatima to four years in prison. They retried her despite the law stating that a sentence of the Supreme Court should not be retried. Fatima has had four sentences; the last one being the death sentence.

“Unlike Amina al-Tuhaif’s case, where there are films about the injustice of her trial, Fatima’s case was neglected,” Shadh said, adding that people did not know that Amina would return to jail on the accusation of adultery.

Yahia al-Haidari, responsible for quality and reform in the prison, says that there are a lot of cases that show the deficiencies in the courts and the systems and procedures of prosecution. He added that there are detained women who wait in prison for months while their cases undergo investigation. “Many of them are waiting years for sentencing. Sometimes those years of waiting are more than what their crimes would be punishable for.”

He said that the change of judges and the court vacation of four months is one of reasons behind their unjust stays in prison. “One of the detainees waited for four months to receive a copy of the primary court’s sentence. The period of appeal ended before she received a copy of her sentence,” al-Haidari said.

Research has shown that as many as half of all women being held in prison are still awaiting formal charges and have not yet appeared before a court. In one case, a woman who had left her allegedly abusive husband was arrested and was being held in Ta’iz prison more than one year later for allegedly sleeping in the house of another man. Even when women do finally appear before a court, gender discrimination, as outlined above, affects both the hearing and sentencing of their crimes.

In a visit to Mansoora prison in Aden in 2000, Oxfam researcher Marta Colburn interviewed ten women detainees; one had been imprisoned for performing illegal abortions, two for theft, one for abuse of alcohol and six for zina. Of these ten women, only two had had their cases tried in court and had been sentenced. A majority of the remaining eight had already served more than a year in detention without trial.

Investigator Tariq, working in the South East Secretaries’ Prosecution, said that in khalwa cases police or penal investigation catch the couple and send them to prosecution. They send them to prison according to the proof and evidence they have.

“But this time there are no more khalwa crimes” he said. There are no females to investigate women in spite of the fact that there are many female suspects coming to prosecution. He said that he had investigated four detained women in the last two months. He added that he had not faced any problems or difficulties when investigating women. “Women are weaker than men and confess faster. They do not lie, especially in the face of evidence and proof, and they do not insist on their story if it is based on lies.”

He added that the prosecution, unlike the courts, does not take vacation. He denied that there is any delay of cases or torture of the suspects. “Investigation takes from one and a half to two hours,” he said. “We do not yell during the investigations, even with male suspects. There is no one saying that he has been tortured during investigation.”

Amal al-Huraibi worked in prosecution for 16 years. During this time she investigated male as well as female suspects. She moved from the South East Secretaries’ Prosecution to Passport and Personal Affairs Prosecution, saying that prosecutors did not stay in one place, but keep changing offices.

She deals with many accused women in Passport and Personal Affairs Prosecution. She said that most of them are accused of forged personal information; especially marital status, particularly in changing their status from divorced to married or single. Some of them do that in order to travel with their children outside of the country.

Some men use the visa and personal information of their ex-wives to be able to travel with their new wives. The women are detained for using the other identity. But Amal deals more with non-Yemeni women who are illegally residing in the country or those who have committed crimes such as stealing while working as house staff.

According to many human right organizations, the law stating that a female shall be held in prison until one of her male relatives comes to get her has been changed.

“There is not a single woman in prison after the completion of their detention period,” Mutaher said. “We release them when they have served their sentence period and they are free to go where they want.” There are shelters that women can go to after being released from prison or for those women who have no home to go to, among them the center for women in Aden and the GTZ shelter.

al-Motamar

70% of Yemeni women support electoral quota system
Sunday, 09-December-2007
almotamar.net - An opinion poll published Sunday in Sana’a revealed that about 70% of Yemeni woman support a legal text obliging political parties in Yemen to allocate a defined proportion for women in the parties local elections.

Supporting that was 40% of men and refused it 29% of females and 59% of males.

Regarding general elections more than 68% preferred a law or an agreement document among political parties compelling them making the 15-30 % of parties candidates from women. A law of this kind was supported by around 40%, while refusing specification of a proportion of female candidates in political parties was refused by around 58% of men and 29% of females.

The opinion poll conducted by the Yemeni Opinion Poll Centre (YPC) indicated that allocation of 15% for the woman in election needs more efforts for enlightening the society about it in coincidence with legislative texts and mechanisms contributing in empowering the woman to the right of the quota.

The constitutional amendments proposed by President Ali Abdullah Saleh last September with the aim of developing the political system in Yemen included allocation of 15% for the woman in the general elections for membership the parliament and to be stipulated in a law.

The opinion poll sample included 334 Yemeni employees from both sexes over the age of 18 years, among them married and unmarried women distributed over 31 constituencies in governorates of Sana’a, Aden, Ibb and Hadrmout.