Despite great risks to them in a sexist society, thousands of women have stood up to demonstrate against President Saleh
(Left: Tawakkol-karman)
Nadya Khalife
(Middle East North Africa researcher in the women's rights division at Human Rights Watch. )
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 7 May 2011
""Security forces in civilian clothes have threatened me with the jambiyya, not just during demonstrations, but everywhere I go," the protest leader and journalist Tawakkol Karman [A great, dynamic and a very inspiring leader. I am a strong fan of her, and Yemen should be proud of her.] told me, describing the traditional dagger that Yemeni men wear strapped to their waists.
In the past, any mention of Yemen's women in the news media has usually been about two issues, neither of them positive. The first is that they are more likely than most women in the Middle East to die in childbirth, and the second that they are among the least empowered women in the world.
The second assumption has recently been shattered by the uprisings in Yemen.
Since the beginning of the protests, women like Karman have come out in great numbers to demonstrate against President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has ruled in Yemen for more than 30 years. They have stood side by side with tens of thousands of Yemeni men to fill the city squares of Sana'a, Ta'izz, Aden, and other major cities, demanding his resignation.....
These attacks, along with state-sponsored discrimination and their families' shame, are not making it easy on Yemeni women who are speaking out. But for now, they continue to stand up for their rights. Two days after Saleh's statement denouncing female activists as un-Islamic, thousands took to the streets again, determined to show that they will not be silenced or sent home."
(Left: Tawakkol-karman)
Nadya Khalife
(Middle East North Africa researcher in the women's rights division at Human Rights Watch. )
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 7 May 2011
""Security forces in civilian clothes have threatened me with the jambiyya, not just during demonstrations, but everywhere I go," the protest leader and journalist Tawakkol Karman [A great, dynamic and a very inspiring leader. I am a strong fan of her, and Yemen should be proud of her.] told me, describing the traditional dagger that Yemeni men wear strapped to their waists.
In the past, any mention of Yemen's women in the news media has usually been about two issues, neither of them positive. The first is that they are more likely than most women in the Middle East to die in childbirth, and the second that they are among the least empowered women in the world.
The second assumption has recently been shattered by the uprisings in Yemen.
Since the beginning of the protests, women like Karman have come out in great numbers to demonstrate against President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has ruled in Yemen for more than 30 years. They have stood side by side with tens of thousands of Yemeni men to fill the city squares of Sana'a, Ta'izz, Aden, and other major cities, demanding his resignation.....
These attacks, along with state-sponsored discrimination and their families' shame, are not making it easy on Yemeni women who are speaking out. But for now, they continue to stand up for their rights. Two days after Saleh's statement denouncing female activists as un-Islamic, thousands took to the streets again, determined to show that they will not be silenced or sent home."
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