* *Fellow Students I know there is so much uncertainty
and nervousness regarding the Covid-19 Pandemic. I hope that you and your
families are all keeping safe and following guidelines spelt out by the
Federal, State and Local governments together with recommendations from the CDC
and the FDA. **
Yemen, sometimes spelled Yaman, officially
the Republic of Yemen, is a country at the southern end of the Arabian
Peninsula in Western Asia. It is the second-largest Arab sovereign state in the
peninsula, occupying 527,970 square kilometers (203,850 square miles). The
coastline stretches for about 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles). It is bordered by
Saudi Arabia to the north, the Red Sea to the west, the Gulf of Aden and
Guardafui Channel to the south, and Oman and the Arabian Sea to the east.
Yemen's territory encompasses more than 200 islands, including Socotra, one of
the largest islands in the Middle East. Yemen is a member of the Arab League,
United Nations, Non-Aligned Movement and the Organization of Islamic
Cooperation. Yemen is characterized as a failed state with high necessity of
transformation (Global Fragile States Index, 2019).
Even before 2015, Yemeni women were subject
to discrimination, both in their homes and in the workplace. Women are
systematically denied access to jobs, are under-represented in public office, and
bear disproportionate responsibility for unpaid caregiving and domestic work.
Source:Care International
In the context of conflict, gender
inequalities are both greater and more visible. One-fifth of Yemeni households
are headed by women younger than 18 years old, and women and children account
for three-quarters of those who are displaced. Conflict is also correlated to a
rise in gender-based violence, which was documented 36 per cent more in 2016
than it was just one year earlier. And in times of economic hardship, girls are
less likely to stay in school, more likely to marry early, and less likely to
receive basic health services – including gynecological and obstetric care. Ending
all forms of discrimination against women and girls is not only a basic human right,
it is crucial to sustainable development.
Experience demonstrates that empowering women
stimulates economic growth and development in all areas. Ensuring universal
access to sexual and reproductive health, legal protection and access to
justice, opportunities for education and income-generation, and right to
economic resources such as land and property are vital to achieving gender
equality and empowering all women and girls (Gender Equality: Yemen,2015).
Against this backdrop, the United Nations
Development Program (UNDP) seeks to address issues of structural gender
inequality, and to meet the urgent needs of women and girls. In doing so it
implements a variety of projects – from assisting vulnerable women in places of
detention to supporting women’s rights actors working for peace. UNDP has
pledged to expand its partnerships with all stakeholders including Member
States, UN agencies and local and international civil society organizations in cooperation with the
relevant authorities. UNDP will continue to seek to expand humanitarian assistance
and longer-term recovery and resilience programming in the country in support
of gender equity, equality and the empowerment of women and girls.
Yemen has several key
challenges to gender equality and women’s empowerment. Firstly, Women’s participation
and leadership in the public sphere is low. The
2018 Gender Gap Index rated both women’s economic participation and political
empowerment in Yemen at 140 of 142 countries. Secondly, Yemeni women
record low levels of participation in formal paid work. Thirdly, there is a
very high rate of violence against women and girls reported, including forced
and early marriage. Also, structural inequalities hinder women’s and girl’s
access to basic services, resulting in a dramatic gender gap in literacy and basic
education and high maternal mortality rates. Lastly, both the formal and
informal justice systems discriminate against women in many aspects contrary to
Yemen’s commitments to international conventions such as the Convention on the
Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (The Global Gender Gap
Report, 2018).
Despite all these challenges, the United
Nations is committed to helping girls and women in Yemen. In 2014, UN Women
established a presence in Yemen, working in close collaboration with the UN
system to provide coordination, normative and program support to strengthen
gender equality and women’s empowerment efforts. UN Women Yemen works with its
partners to eliminate discrimination against women and girls, empower women and
promote equality between women and men as partners and beneficiaries of
development, human rights, humanitarian action and peace and security
activities. This work aims to achieve three strategic goals:
a) Humanitarian
action: Address the needs of vulnerable women and girls to ensure those
affected by the crisis can participate in, are empowered by and benefit from
response and recovery efforts.
b) Gender
mainstreaming in humanitarian response: Provide capacity building support to
leaders, networks, civil society and UN agencies on gender mainstreaming in
humanitarian programming.
c) Women, Peace and
Security: Increase women's leadership and inclusion in peace processes and
enhance gender in peacebuilding in support of UN Security Council Resolution
1325 (UN Women Arab States, n.d.).
Despite all these efforts The United
Nations has done to empower women, it came under sharp criticism over the
election of Yemen to be the Vice President at the UN's Gender Equality Agency.
According to a human rights watchdog organization, “Electing Yemen to protect
women’s rights is like making a pyromaniac into the town fire chief,” said
Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, a Geneva-based non-governmental
human rights group. How could the UN choose Yemen, a country that tolerates
female genital mutilation, denies women hospital treatment without the
permission of a male relative, and counts a woman’s testimony as worth half
that of a man?” We remind the UN that women in Yemen cannot marry without
permission of their male guardians, and face deeply entrenched
discrimination.in both law and practice, in all aspects of their lives,
including employment, education and housing (UN Elects Yemen, Worst on Gender
Equality, as VP at UN’s Gender Equality Agency,2019).
References:
Global Fragile States
Index, 2019. Retrieved from
Gender Equality:
Yemen,2015. Retrieved from
The Global Gender Gap
Report, 2018. World Economic Forum. Retrieved from
UN Elects Yemen, Worst
on Gender Equality, as VP at UN’s Gender Equality Agency,2019. Retrieved from
