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June/July 1997, pgs. 31, 89 Women's Affairs
Despite Illustrious Past, Yemeni Women Suffer Discrimination
by Katherine MetresMore than a thousand years before the birth of Christianity and later of Islam, Yemen was led by the bold Queen of Sheba, who introduced a consultative style of leadership and traveled as far as Jerusalem to establish trade contacts. She was followed by a series of impressive Yemeni female political leaders, scholars and poets. Yet today women living in this southern Arabian country must struggle to secure the most basic rights guaranteed to them by their government and religion. Yemen is the poorest and most rural country in the Middle East. Life is not easy for any of its inhabitants. But patriarchal traditions combine with underdevelopment to create a situation in which a Yemeni woman is lucky to live to middle age, much less to achieve her potential. According to a 1992 UNICEF report, "The average Yemeni woman receives less health care as an infant than her brothers, is more likely than her brothers to die before the age of five, is less educated than her brothers, marries at an early age, starts bearing children quickly and has anywhere between five and nine children in rapid succession, suffers from chronic anemia, is unlikely to have easy access to health facilities, works at home or in the fields for an average of 12 to 16 hours a day, and remains illiterate all her life."1 When women suffer, their whole society suffers. Although most Yemeni women work very hard, with more education they could invigorate the stagnant Yemeni economy and bring to maturity a much healthier and more productive new generation. According to a governmental women's committee: "One of the factors leading to the poverty circle is the insufficient contribution of woman to economic development."2 Few Westerners know that Islam protects many women's rights: the right to life, the right to education, the right to own property and conduct business, even the right to contraception and early abortion.3 The fact that only 35 percent of young Yemeni girls are sent to primary school (while three-quarters of their brothers study) seems to violate the Qur'anic insistence on children's rights to equal treatment regardless of gender and to a good education.4 Nonetheless, Islamists in many Arab countries choose the most restrictive interpretations of Islamic law. Their intention is at best to protect girls from potential predators among male teachers and classmates, or at worst to buttress male dominance. Knowing that the conservative Yemenis frown on coeducation, does the government make an effort to provide separate classrooms for girls? No. According to Dr. Raufa Hassan Alsharki, executive director of the Women's Studies Center at Sana'a University, the government ignores the cultural obstacles girl students face and fails to provide the arrangements their parents require. In fact, when female teachers and all-girl classes are available, female enrollment tends to be high.5 In the short term, however, few Yemeni women teachers are available. Their own families may disapprove of their living away from home to train in a central location. The result is that only 15 percent of Yemeni women are literate, while more than half of their male counterparts can read.6 When women are deprived of education, they may believe that their only social contribution is to bear children who will work in the fields and support their parents in their old age. Thus the typical Yemeni girl spends her brief childhood learning household skills that will make her a good wife, at the age of 15 or 16. In the marriage ceremony, the Muslim woman is asked whether she accepts or refuses the marriage partner selected for her, and in most cases she is consulted beforehand. Yet Islamic family law interpretations made solely by men can disempower women. "Although in early Islam Aishah, the wife of the Prophet, and other Muslim women played a leading role in the interpretation of law, women were later increasingly excluded from the field of jurisprudence until they were finally declared unfit for judicial positions."7 (This history is similar to Christianity, where women in the early Church served as deaconesses but now are denied that function by Rome.) "The barring of women from judicial positions, however, has significantly altered the development of Islamic jurisprudence, especially in the area of family law [which is based] on a traditional patriarchal view of males as rational, courageous and firm and of females as emotional, weak and rash."8 Thus when shariah (Islamic law) is the major source of family law, as it is in Yemen, a father acting as guardian can force his virgin daughter to marry a man of his choice,9 a husband may take up to four wives, a woman has the right of divorce only in extreme situations, and a man has the right of no-fault divorce. To help ensure that her husband will not divorce her for lack of offspring (particularly sons), a Yemeni wife bears an average of 7.5 children.10 This high fertility rate contributes substantially to Yemen's difficulties in developing economically and in providing services such as primary education for girls and boys. The governmental women's committee reports, "Population growth is linked to the Yemeni women's situation which, socially, economically and culturally is declining."11 Another problem is that the teenaged bride often bears children before her own body has finished growing. (By law, a girl must be 15 years old to marry, but the government is unable to enforce this provision, and marriages of 12- and 13-year-olds still occur in rural areas.12) She may eat less than normal to ensure a low birth-weight baby that her tiny body (an average of 103 pounds in the north, often as the result of childhood malnutrition) can bear to deliver. In addition, a totally veiled woman, the norm in the cities, may suffer from osteomalacia, a condition caused by lack of calcium and exposure to the sun, which may prove fatal in childbirth. When no doctor is available or her husband forbids her to see a male health worker, this vulnerable mother may receive no medical attention before, during, or after delivery. Thus she risks becoming part of Yemen's sky-high maternal morbidity rate: 14 deaths per 1,000 live births, in a region whose average is 3 per 1,000. If she survives childhood and childbearing, the Yemeni woman is theoretically in a good position to exercise her rights. Since 1991 the unified Yemeni government has guaranteed her the right to vote, to hold any political office, and to equal opportunity employment "in any job that does not breach public regulations and sentiment." In the public sphere there have been some promising developments. Twenty-six women are serving in Yemen's diplomatic corps. The first woman ambassador is expected to be appointed soon, and there are now two women parliamentarians. Also, in the past 10 years, women have received credit, savings and investment services from local and foreign banks,13 securing them a modicum of economic independence. However, most Yemeni women face cultural barriers that prevent them from taking advantage of such opportunities. Islam is a flexible religion, capable of ijma,' interpretation by consensus. Nonetheless, change that empowers women is deeply threatening to men, and traditional women, in any part of the world. In addition, when demands for gender equality are perceived as being imposed from the outside rather than formulated by Yemenis themselves, they are apt to be dismissed. Therefore, significant improvement in the status of Yemeni women can only come about through a Yemeni women's movement. According to Dr. Hassen, no Yemeni women's movement yet exists. Attention to women's problems occurs only when prompted by world events, or through efforts by the government that aid only a tiny fraction of poor women. Feminists like herself have established non-governmental women's organizations, but a mass movement is badly needed. Only when progressive Yemenis demand and tolerant Yemenis accept the removal of restrictions on women will Yemen's economic, social, cultural and political development proceed successfully. NOTES:
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