Yemen

Before Yemen's unification and the bloody civil war that followed, women in the southern port city of Aden say they were educated professionals with rights not experienced by those in the conservative north. Yemen's unification in 1990 curbed those rights.

Thirteen Yemeni women will follow their male colleagues on house raids and search any women they encounter.
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Although Yemen's parliament has agreed to set the minimum age for marriage at 17, there are concerns the decision may be rescinded as some members of parliament (MPs) say the amendments violate Sharia (Islamic) law.
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Delegation of Yemen, led by Minister for Human Rights Dr Huda al-Ban, taking part in Yemen report presented to UN’s Human Rights Council held in Geneva discussed the report of the Yemeni Republic. It reviewed the role that Yemen is playing in the field of human rights and the work it presents for pushing forward human rights. Minister al-ban clarified that Yemen established the ministry of human rights, works on protecting rights and reviewed structure of the ministry and the tasks it performs in the field of human rights.

A training course on the legal procedures for female candidates in the parliamentary election kicked off in Sana'a on Saturday.The training course is organized by Women National Committee (WNC) in collaboration with the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM).
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Yemeni women activists are responding combatively to the media war waged by state outlets this week aimed at denouncing female participation in protests sweeping the nation.

Sparking the row, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh on Friday criticized gender intermingling during the demonstrations in a televised speech delivered to thousands of pro-regime supporters.  

“I call on them [the joint meeting parties] to reject the mixing of sexes as it’s forbidden by Islam,” Saleh urged in Sanaa.

When anti-government demonstrations first began in Yemen three months ago, many predicted that they were likely to fail because - unlike Tunisia or Egypt - Yemen would not be able to mobilise half of its population. The sceptics could not have been more wrong.

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Despite being at the forefront of sweeping changes taking place in the country, the lives of the majority of Yemeni women are restricted to early marriage, motherhood and serving husbands, according to a new study by Women Without Borders (WWB), a Vienna based public relations and advocacy platform for women’s voices around the world. The survey reveals that women are largely restricted to the private sphere and discouraged from participating in public life.