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Women Empowerment: high hopes and a disappointing reality
Co-Founder
This Op-ed has been published on Raseef22 platform.
“The exclusion of women from political participation in Yemen is a crime against the entire society. A crime that hinders progress, limits development opportunities, and deprives Yemen of enormous potential.” Bahia Al-Saqqaf - Yemeni feminist leader and chairwomen of the PASS Foundation
Given the number of important international agreements and UN resolutions ratified by Yemen pertaining to women’s rights, the large number of studies, reports and articles produced over more than three decades, and other detailed publications that explain the situation of women and oppose the intention of marginalizing them and limiting their roles in all aspects of life. The actors are still a long way from actually responding to the rights of Yemeni women, wasting a lot of time in a vicious circle of discussing axioms, searching for options that do not create an impact and do not comply with the spirit of gender justice, and there is no foreseeable future for their results other than continuing to exclude women from public life. Here comes the most important question: What is missing in Yemen to give women their rights? What is the missing link to complete the process of recognizing women and empowering them with their rights? Are we satisfied with workshops and table discussions, or are we pushing towards designing implementation plans that would issue decisions and measures that grant women their inherent right to representation and contribute to the management of the most difficult stage that Yemen and women are going through?
Exclusion by Governments Looking at the role of successive Yemeni governments over the decades towards women and their right to equality and fair political representation, we only see a complete bias towards the male mentality and a reconciliation with the discriminatory logic against women. Let us examine part of this methodology, in selecting state figures and decision-making. Since the Yemeni reunification in 1990 until 2020, 14 governments were appointed, with a total of 444 ministerial portfolios, of which women’s share was only 18 portfolios, i.e. approximately 4.1%.
The actors are still a long way from actually responding to the rights of Yemeni women, wasting a lot of time in a vicious circle of discussing axioms, searching for options that do not create an impact and do not comply with the spirit of gender justice, and there is no foreseeable future for their results other than continuing to exclude women from public life. Why?
This indicator is doubly disastrous if we compare it to the population census, in which women represent nearly half of society. What is also disturbing in these statistics is not only the exclusion of women, which constitutes a consistent governmental pattern and approach, but the consequences of isolating a fabric, which is half of society, from representing itself and its country. This makes the process of revitalizing life in Yemen almost paralyzed, lacking in inclusion, and even excluding a broad segment of women in their earnest desire for national representation in decision-making. At different stages of time, women tried to activate their role and overcome discrimination, and some of them resulted in outcomes in state bodies, such as (the right to a women’s quota), which was one of the most prominent outcomes of the National Dialogue in 2014. These outcomes tried to guarantee women their right in the necessity of amending the Yemeni constitution. The participation rate of women starts at 30%, but the conflict that followed in 2015 brought with it a lot of disappointment and aborted all attempts and struggles that would help Yemeni women exercise their rights. As the armed conflict in Yemen enters its tenth year, the country’s infrastructure collapses, the layers of protection recede, and everything that might undermine the movement of women in the public space is multiplied by the parties to the conflict, women are experiencing a more severe period of exclusion than before. The gender gap index confirms that women in Yemen are the most unfortunate in the world in terms of equality of rights between the sexes. For example, for five years in a row (2013-2017), Yemen occupied last place in the index reports issued by the World Economic Forum, and in In 2021, Yemen was also at the bottom of the index with its ranking of 155 out of 156. The current, internationally recognized Yemeni government chooses its policies towards women, in violation of the outcomes of the national dialogue and without justification. Rather, it opts for a policy of non-representation of women in most government positions and decision-making tools. But the question remains: If the one who practices the policy of exclusion is the government, who could support the women inclusion? and who will ensure the implementation of international resolutions and conventions, and take matters into account where they should be? Then what is the obstacle to imposing equality and accepting the role of women, who represent 49.5% of society? The strange thing is the state of schizophrenia dominating mind-set of the post-National Dialogue governments, as they deliberately emptied the quota right of its content, and in parallel with that, they adopt excessive and flexible language in which they talk about the importance of the presence of women as active partners in comprehensive development, as they stressed in a statement issued on the 18th. March 2022 “Women are an active partner in comprehensive development at the political, economic, and social levels, in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution, Yemeni laws, and international agreements and treaties, despite the conditions of war.” This announcement called for the government to review its behavior, instead of preaching sermons that fell on deaf ears.
Civil society is also condemned In this context, the contributions of the international community and United Nations agencies and offices are not far from what the authorities are doing in Yemen, where many negotiations and key discussions have taken place since the beginning of the conflict in Yemen regarding the ceasefire and the peacebuilding process, and women were not invited to participate in many of them, but rather attendance was often limited to males.
“Yemen is deprived of enormous energy, countless creativity, and conscious minds capable of making positive change. How can a country prosper when half of its people are marginalized and excluded?” Bahia Al-Saqqaf - a Yemeni feminist leader and president of the PASS Foundation
In discussions where women were included, the percentage of women’s participation was very small, as the best representation of women in all of these official negotiations was their representation in the peace negotiations that took place in Kuwait in 2016, where women represented 12% of the participants in the two rounds. The unfortunate thing here is that arranging such meetings and negotiations is not a simple arrangement and is characterized by the diversity of standards of representation from the various parties. How could gender representation not be a criterion in any of the discussions? How could the list of male attendees repeatedly not provoke any of the parties, mediators, representatives of countries, missions, or... Even the Office of the UN Special Envoy to Yemen. It is a shameful bleak record, that is not like and not covering the wonderful work of the United Nations agencies in international missions in Yemen.! From time to time, the special envoy's office announces some side meetings, which are often designed for women and to hear their views on the conflict resolution process. This is an important and good gesture, but difficult to understand in an absolute positive light. Firstly, because it takes place in isolation from actual negotiations, and secondly, Because, of course, to ensure the quality and effectiveness of the meetings, all parties who can make such decisions must be involved, including certainly men, as representatives of authority. Involving women and men together in all future visions for Yemen is the ideal way to move towards an integrated peace road map. There have been many events and workshops carried out by civil society organizations inviting women to discuss their rights in complete isolation from the most important partner in this equation, which is the man. It is also not easy to guarantee that this approach will generate good results, especially since it is similar to the approach of isolating women when the decision-maker is a man. Perhaps it is important here to rethink how to deal with men’s willingness to contribute to the advocacy of women’s rights and add an element that describes this situation as a new challenge to be added. On the process of gender equality. Paying attention to women’s rights at times and neglecting them at other times, and treating them as an active partner but temporarily or intermittently, is disgraceful behavior, and is even absolutely unacceptable, because it is based on letting women down and not respecting their inherent right to exist and participate in public life, and would create more existing violations. On gender in Yemen, and what is certain is that it will never contribute to planning a comprehensive peace process unless it is also a process that fails Yemeni women. Recognizing the necessity of gender representation in decision-making in Yemen must remain a reality, and far from exaggeration. This challenge also requires the international community and the Yemeni authorities to possess a spirit of credibility and courage to empower women with their rights and create policies and procedures that contribute to facilitating women’s access to decision-making positions and designing mechanisms to protect these roles. Refusing to exclude women is no longer a spur-of-the-moment demand. Yemen has never been a friend of women's rights in its full form. However, after the conflict in Yemen has become nearly 10 years old, and the efforts of outdated traditions and customs have combined, women have begun to suffer a lot in order to live in dignity.
" On International Women's Day, Yemeni women are not looking for congratulations and blessings on social media platforms, nor for a reminder that one day a bold and courageous woman ruled Yemen, but rather to see a bold country recognize them within an executive plan with a specific time and goal. It aims to urgently give real positions to women leaders in accordance with policies and regulations that protect women and their rights.
Although the Yemeni Constitution refers to their rights in a timid manner, this system often does not help protect them. Although Yemen is considered one of the member states of the United Nations and ratified in 1994 the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the first article of which states that “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights,” it has also ratified many international instruments that oppose discrimination based on gender. However, there is still a systematic and inhumane classification of women as second-class citizens, and that they naturally represent a branch or subordinate and are not a complete, independent entity. This increases the burden on governments, and places greater responsibilities on them in averting this harm on their behalf. On International Women's Day, which falls on March 8, Yemeni women are not looking for congratulations and blessings on social media platforms, nor for a reminder that one day a bold and courageous woman ruled Yemen, but rather to see a bold country recognize them within an executive plan with a specific time and goal. It aims to urgently give real positions to women leaders in accordance with policies and regulations that protect women and their rights. On February 16, 2024, for example, the Feminist Solidarity Network shared a proposal with the Presidential Leadership Council (the internationally recognized government) asking it to review previous decisions in which women were excluded in forming the 2020 government, and asking them to benefit from the presence of current political changes. In the government structure to accommodate female competencies who contribute to decision-making. The network took the initiative to put some detailed ideas into the proposal. Of course, the internationally recognized government can make and adopt such proposals, and it can also heed the proposals presented by civil society, but what is no longer possible is to see the government violating the right of women again to form the current government. The Yemeni government must respond to this request and not shirk its obligations represented by international laws and treaties and the outcomes of the national dialogue. This is something that also apply to the other parties and actors as well.