Yemen
- Study Reveals Rights Violations Against Women
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By Kawkab
al-Thaibani
May 1, 2007 |
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| YFMF presented preliminary results of a study on rights violations against women. |
The study also took into account demographic information of the women surveyed, such as whether or not they had children, were currently married, divorced or windowed, etc. The survey was funded by the National Endowment for Democracy. The study revealed many notable findings, as presented by Majed al-Mathhaji, the person in charge of monitoring activities from the Arab Sisters Forum. Of particular note is the fact that illiterate women were more likely to suffer abuse and infringement of their human rights than women who are at least somewhat educated.
Another notable finding is that in the overwhelming majority of cases in which women are victims of violence, the perpetrators of the violence are members of the woman’s family. This figure reaches 87 percent: 35 percent of these violent acts are committed by the husband alone, and one percent is committed by the husband along with other individuals. Fathers were the perpetrators in 29 percent of violent acts against women, 24 percent of which were committed by the father alone, and almost five percent were committed by the father with others.
These findings were revealed along with a comprehensive assessment of articles published in the newspapers during the past three months that deal with the infringement of human rights, or presented coverage of women’s issues. The report on the collected media articles was presented by Dalia Ana’am, the deputy chairwoman of YFMF. “Day after day, women who run the NGOs prove that they are successful in dealing with women’s issues,” said Horiah Mashhoor, the deputy head of the National Women’s Committee.
“The findings of this study deserve to be emphasized by YFMF,” she said. Mashhoor suggested focusing also on maternal healthcare. “For every 100,000 births, 366 women die in delivery,” she said. Another area of major concern to those assembled is the level of political participation by the Yemeni women. “Arab women have to know that there are other options than the ‘quota system’ to improving their situation,” said Mashhoor, referring to various proposals and guarantees of a certain percentage of government posts and legislative seats being allotted to women.
The study’s results in the area of women’s political participation were presented by Basim al-Haj, the head of the monitoring unit at the Yemeni Marsad (Observatory) for Human Rights. The study bemoaned the fact that there has yet to be a women candidate for president in the Arab region. Political parties, namely the Joint Meeting Parties and General People’s Congress signed on 18 June 2006 an ‘agreement of principles’ that emphasized the need for women to be involved in politics, the study said. However, this text was more than ink on paper, and was never put into practice; neither was it enforced for the local council or the presidential elections, in which there were a paltry few female candidates who struggled to gain the support of their parties, according to the study.
In the presidential election, women candidates fared worst of all, as no female candidate was endorsed by any political party. “However, the parties always use excuses like ‘the society’s conservative culture’ and ‘the society’s negative view towards women’ to avoid supporting their female candidates in the elections,” the study said. This shows that the parties are more concerned with maintaining the status quo and their control over individual districts, than to advancing the status of women by presenting them as strong candidates.
The study recommends enhancing the initiative of the Nation’s Alliance to support women’s political participation. It advocates “creating a mechanism to protect and support women candidates, provide urgent legal assistance and organize media solidarity campaigns to combat any and all violations against women candidates through a national hotline and the creation of specialized offices to offer support…[as well as] benefiting from foreign support for women and applying pressure for electoral system reforms.”
After the reports had been presented, an open discussion took place among presenters and the audience to evaluate and comment on the experience of the YFMF. Despite the seminar’s stated purpose, some took the opportunity to address other development issues, arguing that the provision of basic needs is necessarily a human rights issue. “I hope that the civil society organizations can support the other important aspects of life; there are many who suffer form the shortage of water,” said Ramzia al-Eryani, the head of the Yemeni Women Union.
“I call for putting the rural area development projects under consideration.” However, al-Eryani’s suggestion was met with some consternation. “I think that al-Eryani is confused about the role of the government and the role of the NGOs,” said Jamal al-Jo’abi, a lawyer. “She wants the NGOs to do what is properly the government’s job.” The discussion turned to thoughts on what should be considered a human rights violation.
“Obviously, there has been a confusion between the two concepts of crime, on the one hand, and human rights violations on the other,” said Jamal al-Jo’abi, a lawyer. Al-Jo’abi said that the crime should be considered a violation of human rights when the perpetrator goes unpunished. “If the man does not receive punishment, for no other reason than that he is a man and the victim is a woman, then this should be considered a human rights violation,” he said. Furthermore, some participants had reservations about what evidence should be accepted and how it was collected.
“We cannot say that the man is guilty [of a crime against a woman] unless he has been found guilty by the court, this is one point,” al-Jo’abi said, “the other is that the names and all the details are not presented in some of the articles, so these should not put on the record,” he said. “How was the polling done? Did the team go to individual homes?” asked Sumia al-Khawlani, a lawyer from Allawo Corporation for Advocates.
“Also, are there any future guarantees that these violations will not continue?” she asked. “Our role was only to observe and monitor what is happening; we don’t have any authority to protect these women,” said Anam. “It is a good initiative to begin monitoring all the infringements of the women’s rights,” said Hafez al-Bukari, the head of the Yemeni Polling Center.
“However, what is more important is to find solutions to these cases, in order to really integrate the women into the society and transform her role from a burden upon her into a benefit.” There are other causes of violations according to violated women’s answers.
These include:
- The absence of legal institutions, or trust in their ability to prevent violations or deter violators in addition to the nonexistence of legislations that would incriminate some types of abuse according to 41 cases (7.7%) - Family violence, 30 cases (5.6%)
- Political reason that indicate nature of positions and concepts on democratic and freedom of political affiliation. The cases involved were 21 (3.9%) - Alcohol and drugs abuse; 16 cases (3%)
- Thirty-one women (5.8%) did not mention any of the above reasons.