? Have we forgotten the women of Yemen
Nadia Al-Saqqaf
Women’s rights are often sidelined during conflicts, along with freedoms and civil rights that also fall out of consideration. If women are spoken of in a turbulent situation similar to that of Yemen today, they are often seen as victims rather than as actors involved in the political process and have an impact. How did the women of Yemen get to this tragic situation when they were happy a few months ago, especially on 18 March 2013.
It was the last day of the nearly 10-month National Dialogue Conference, in which women made up about 30 percent of the 565 members. The aim of that conference was to establish the legal basis for a new security that would prevail over social justice, particularly with regard to women’s rights and within the framework of the law. It marked the end of the political transition in a country that has been in turmoil since 2011. After many discussions, the National Dialogue Conference produced a document that saluted hundreds of outputs on which the draft new constitution was built, and the new constitution, unlike the previous constitution, was drafted in a way that recognizes women’s full citizenship and independent legal personality. Under the constitution, they also gained a 30% share of decision-making positions, which would have made Yemen second only to Tunisia, where women are legally represented in positions of power among Arab countries.
The next victory for Yemeni women after the National Dialogue Conference was the appointment of four women, including me, to the cabinet in 2014, and the participation of four women in a 17-member committee responsible for drafting the new constitution. The two achievements set a precedent in every sense of the word.
Personally, I was present and witnessed this political process of transition, and the multiple processes that led to this point in our political history. I saw how important this victory was for the Yemeni feminist movement, and I was beginning to imagine the books that will be written about Yemen and the success of its transition process and imagine the women of Yemen who will travel around the world to tell the rest of the nations about their experience and even give them advice.
Then the coup d’état took place and everything deteriorated.
The truth is that neither women nor women’s empowerment have ever been a real priority for decision makers in Yemen, even in times of peace, so we are not mind in times of war. Needless to say, most Yemeni women are largely deprived of their rights in this conservative male society, where women are considered to be a minor entity. Statistics confirm this fact since 2006, Yemen has always been ranked last in the World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap Index. This indicator is the result of a calculation comparing the reality of women’s rights to men’s rights in the areas of education, health care, economic participation and political empowerment. In fact, even before the 2014 coup d’état, the situation of Yemeni women was already worse than men. For example, only one woman out of two can read and write among women aged 15 and over. As for health care, 65 percent of women lack reproductive health care services. Every day, eight women died of obstetric complications. For the economic sector, women make up less than 7 percent of the workforce, most of whom work in the education and health care sectors — and are paid less than men for the job itself. Many other examples reflect the deteriorating situation of Yemeni women.
But at the same time, at least until 2014, there was a thriving civil society movement and a strong but not united feminist movement in Yemen. Women in public squares have also emerged as demands for equality and the prevailing stereotypes. I know this because I was one of them and I was there to record the women’s movement and to believe it as a journalist and activist. Since 2011, women have taken significant steps in their struggle to take them seriously as leaders and equal decision makers for men.
Indeed, the achievements of Yemeni women between 2011 and 2014 are due to those strong and courageous women who have made their way to their successors and would not have accepted the reality as they were. What helped was that Yemen was the focus of the world’s attention and that the Un Department of Political Affairs, which was overseeing the political transition, and the international community as a whole supported women’s rights and pressured Yemeni politicians to engage women in the transition process and its various stages. Indeed, women involved in the political process since 2011 have achieved remarkable success and have left their mark despite male control over decision-making processes in yemen’s political scene.
While participating in various political processes, whether the National Dialogue Conference or otherwise, we were aware that if the truth was to reflect written achievements, these rights must be enshrined in the Constitution and detailed in the law. For this reason, for example, it was very insistent that the new Constitution reflect the spirit of equal citizenship between the sexes and the achievements of women achieved at the National Dialogue Conference.
Unfortunately, as usual, when heavily armed men stormed state institutions, a new fait accompli was imposed and the achievements and demands of Yemeni women were tossed out of the window as if they were not. It’s not just the coup d’état in northern Yemen, but when I’m talking to high-level politicians from all sides in Yemen, and even when I’m talking to those who represent democratic diplomatic missions — almost all of them men — about the need to involve women in peace negotiations and the reconciliation process, i’m saying, now is not the time for women. Women’s participation is a luxury that cannot be addressed in times of conflict — a conflict initiated by men and made by men for other men.
The marginalization of women as peacemakers and leaders in political processes is not only unfair to women themselves but also to Yemen’s history and traditional legacy, which includes several examples of women playing effective roles in the peacemaking process. In some tribal areas, for example, if a woman cuts a strand of her hair and put it in front of the tribe’s sheikh, the tradition obliges the sheikh and the entire tribe to respond to her request — as long as it is legitimate — and intelligent women have used this tradition in the past to stop wars or end an armed conflict between tribes. The burning of the niqab also has the same effect and can lift injustice. Even in cities, women often played the role of community peacemakers, bringing families together and favouring conflicting relatives after years of bad relationships. Originally, women are educators, incubators and life data. Not only Yemeni or Arab women, but women in general… For example, more than half a century after the armed conflict in Colombia, the importance of women’s role there in achieving sustainable peace has finally been recognized, hence their participation today at the highest levels of the reconciliation process. Why can’t Yemeni women also be part of the peace-building process? Why can’t women from anywhere in the world be part of the political processes in their countries, particularly in terms of conflict resolution?
Worse still, the de facto regime exercising power in northern Yemen consists of very traditional, uneducated men, most of whom are illiterate and believe in violence and repression. Even under Houthi rule, democracy, freedom and civil rights are the enemy. Journalists and activists disappear either in unknown graves or behind bars without opening a case or initiating any legal proceedings.
The situation is worse for women activists, as they suffer from double discrimination by the Houthis as women and activists at the same time. I remember what it was like at the end of 2014, when I was still minister of information, and I was worried about journalists and employees in the state media, especially about women working in the media. My fear was in place. The houthis took control of Yemeni television, and they beat the women working there and ordered them to go home, act as good wives and submit to their marital duties. saying that the media is not the place for women.
This threat to active women continues anywhere outside the home. A friend of mine tells me about her experience earlier this year when she was driving in Sana’a when a young Houthi checkpoint stopped her at a roadblock with a Kalashnikov. He asked her arrogantly who gave her the right to drive; as a woman, she had to know where she was, and then he asked her to go home. “At first, I was angry and wanted to ask him who gave him the right to give me something like this?” But she knew that such an argument with this person would not work, and decided not to discuss a man with a gun.
Ultimately, the problem with violent coups led by intolerant ideological groups such as those in Yemen is that there is no place for logic or discourse. Yemen’s current armed conflict has destroyed years of progressive action for women’s rights and civil liberties in general. The greatest tragedy is that civilization is not only being destroyed by ignorant men patrolling the streets to erase all signs of democracy and progressive civilization, but also systematically destroying future generations by changing the curriculum and instilling a culture of fear in all means of public communication. What is happening now cannot be easily changed. It will take the restoration of basic civil liberties — especially women’s freedoms — to where we were three years ago.
What comforts me at least is that my struggle with my sisters, women’s rights defenders, is documented to anyone who wants to see it. Personally, I chose my doctoral thesis to focus on women’s empowerment policy in Yemen, and many others will write about our achievements as Yemeni women so that we don’t forget them as Yemen pushes towards the dark ages. We will continue our struggle for the rights and empowerment of Yemeni women in one way or another.
