Yemeni Women Suffering under Houthi Rule
It’s 2023 and Yemeni women are still fighting for their freedom and basic rights against male guardianship.
Yemeni artist Haifa Subay poses for a photo near her paintings to draw attention to ongoing Yemeni Civil war's negative affects on women and children, Sana'a, Yemen. Photo by Anadolu Images
O
n August 10, news of a controversial contract in the Yemeni city of Dhamar went viral. The contract, signed by the Manar tribes in 2021, resurfaced after an ex-political figure from the Islah party posted about the need to implement it across Yemen on Facebook.
The contract included restrictive measures against women in the tribe. For example, it states that women are strictly forbidden to own a smartphone, and if a woman is found having one, her male guardian will be punished. The contract also bans women from wearing makeup, travelling in taxis without a male guardian, and working for humanitarian NGOs.
The contract was reposted by Abdullah Ahmed Al-Adaini, the ex-leader of the conservative Islah party, and sparked a wave of conflicting opinions between supporters and opponents. In a now-deleted Facebook post, al-Adaini claimed that the document should be circulated and implemented throughout Yemen.
This is not the only form of oppression that Yemeni women continue to face under the Houthi leadership. The situation of Yemeni women today is worse than it was eight years ago.
The enslavement of Yemeni women
Regardless of their age, girls and women in Yemen have long suffered. Affected by Yemeni tribal customs, they have struggled for their freedom and rights as independent individuals. Yemeni tribes typically regard women in terms of “honor” and some see it as their duty to control women and restrict their freedom.
An example of extreme control is an incident in 2020, when news broke that a father had sold his daughter to a man for 200,000 YER, the equivalent of 350 USD. The agreement was made on paper between both parties, with no consideration given to the age of the girl, Laimoon, who was reportedly four years old at the time. The papers also contained a formal stamp with signatures of witnesses to the “transaction.”
The incident sparked local and international outrage. Gender-based oppression in Yemen takes place amid the harsh conditions of war, poverty, inflation, and terrible governance.
The forms of oppression against Yemeni women
In an exclusive interview with Politics Today, Nadya Abdullah, the Yemeni deputy minister at the Ministry of Youth and Sports – Women’s Sector, spoke about the different forms of oppression that Yemeni women face on a daily basis. She divided them into two categories: cultural and tradition-related oppression, on the one hand, and postwar oppression, on the other.
Traditional cultural oppression of women centers on the idea that women can’t make good decisions about their own life matters. “Until recently, Yemeni women struggled to have an opinion or a decision about their educational future,” she told Politics Today. “Even today, there are still families who decide on their daughters’ future whether it is education, marriage, or work.”
She also mentioned the issue of inheritance for women in Yemen. “Women always have to lose something, either they fight and lose their family, or they don’t fight and lose their rights,” she said, adding that in some cases, women are forbidden to inherit, regardless of women’s inheritance rights in Islam.
The postwar oppression of Yemeni women
Postwar oppression is a new form of oppression of women, appearing after the 2015 war. It involves the arrest of politically active women and the suffocation of women working for humanitarian NGOs. What is more, Abdullah mentioned that many women have lost their limbs or been killed by mines planted by the Houthis in conflict areas.
“Tens or hundreds of women have lost their limbs or been killed by Houthi mines, and a large number of women have been arrested for political reasons and are still in Houthi prisons,” Abdullah said. Such oppression of women has gone beyond the bounds of tradition and culture.
Despite holding a position in the Yemeni government, Abdullah has also experienced oppression because of her gender. “I fled Sana’a in 2015 because the Houthi forces tried to arrest me at the beginning of Operation Decisive Storm,” she explained, referring to the Saudi-led operation against the Houthis in Yemen. She added, “Since then, I haven’t been able to see my family. All because I am a politically active woman.” What was once shameful has become the norm under the Houthis.
Abdullah is not the only one; the number of women detained in the city of Sana’a alone is estimated at between 200 and 350. Samera al-Huri, a Yemeni activist, was arrested by the Houthi forces for her involvement in politics. Unlike Abdullah, al-Huri wasn’t as lucky. She was captured by the Houthis and tortured for three months until she confessed to false charges of prostitution. The tribal traditions that once protected women from this form of abuse have disappeared under the pressure of war.
The situation of Yemeni women today
According to Amnesty International, Yemeni women continue to experience male guardianship in all areas. For example, free women who have served their sentences remain arbitrarily detained if their male guardian doesn’t appear at the prison to release them.
Grazia Careccia, Amnesty International’s deputy regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, has stated that the authorities in Yemen continue to treat women as incomplete individuals, which is unacceptable. “Customary traditions must evolve, like societies do, to ensure that human rights and dignity are respected,” Careccia said.
Abdullah also talked about how the war has made women the economic backbone of their families. With men dying on the battlefield, Yemeni women have become the household breadwinners. At the same time, they are also increasingly involved in politics, organizing protests, and working for international NGOs—all acts that the Houthi forces don’t accept.
Yemeni women are the victims of oppressive and inhumane treatment by the Houthi leadership and some tribes. If the international community doesn’t intervene in the near future to stop the aggression against Yemeni women, worsen and more women and girls will suffer in the hands of male oppressors.
