MWF publishes second analytic report on women’s violated rights [Archives:2007/1075/Local News]
By: Almigdad Dahesh Mojali
SANA'A, Aug 7 ) Media Women Forum held their second conference related to a project monitoring the Yemeni women's rights movement in 18 governorates on Sunday, August 5. The project aims to monitor the positive and negative changes made in regard to the rights of women and how social, political, economic and cultural attitudes regarding women have changed.
The project's sample group consisted of 554 women whose rights were violated. The sampled women were divided into groups of 30 in each of the18 governorates, except for Sa'ada, which included 40 cases (7.2 percent), Taiz and Al-Mahweet where the cases were 32 each (5.8 percent), Amran with 31 cases (5.6 percent) and Ibb with 29 cases (5.2 percent).
The results will be issued in periodical reports to clarify the changes on the level of each of the 18 Yemeni governorates that are being monitored. This process depends on the investigative skills of 18 researchers from within the 18 different regions. The monitoring process also will include what has been published about women on websites and in Yemeni newspapers.
Field, web and newspapers reports aim to transfer a side of Yemeni women's experience to concerned individuals and organizations internationally, regionally and locally, especially those whose work is related to women's issues, human rights and democracy. Also, these reports represent an active step in personalizing Yemeni women's political, social and economic reality in an attempt to discard the negative aspects and retain programs that are improving their situation.
The report revealed that married women (247 of sampled) have the highest rate of rights violations (44.6 percent), followed by single women (203 of sampled) with 36.6 percent, divorced women (66 of sampled) with 11.9 percent and widowed women (36 of sampled) with 6.5 percent.
In regards to age, the report showed that women 25-34 years old were subjected to more violations than others, with 218 cases (39.4 percent), followed by 24-18 year olds with 136 cases (29.4 percent), 35-44 year olds with 84 cases (15.2 percent), 10-17 year olds with 42 cases (6.7 percent) and 45-49 year olds with 34 cases (6.1 percent). Children aged 0-5 and 6-9 had the lowest percentage of violations (4 percent), with 2 cases reported for each group. Women age 60 and over reported 6 cases of violations (1.1 percent). The study also indicated that three violated females (0.5 percent) refused to reveal their real age.
Based on the sampled women's professions, housewives represented the highest violation rate (42.2 percent) with 234 cases. Students followed with 101 cases (18.2 percent), then farmers with 53 cases (9.6 percent). The unemployed reported 46 cases (8.3 percent), followed by teachers with 22 cases (0.4 percent) and nurses with 45 cases (8.1 percent). Street vendors identified 7 cases (1.3 percent) and doctors 18 cases (3.2 percent). The report also showed that the violated women who refused to answer questions were 23 (4.2 percent).
In terms of violated women's education, it is noted that the illiterate were subjected to abuse more than other groups with 149 cases (26.9 percent) followed by secondary school students and college graduates, which were equal with 117 cases (21.1 percent). Primary schools pupils reported 55 cases (9.9 percent), basic education 44 cases (7.9 percent), preparatory school students 39 cases (7 percent), high school graduates 21 cases (3.8 percent), post-preparatory school graduates 5 cases (0.9 percent) and M.A. students with 0.4 percent of cases. Ph.D holders had the lowest amount of cases with one report of abuse (0.2 percent). The abused who refused to answer questions were 4 (0.7 percent).
As for abused women's health there were 70 cases of sick women (21.6 percent) and 10 cases of disabled. Violated women with good health formed 473 cases (85.4 percent).
The styles and forms of women's rights violations varied form objective violation, dignity, physical and psychological violations. The cases in these categories were 89 (15.5 percent). Forcing girls to marry prematurely, resulting in dire psychological, health and social complications represented 62 cases (11.2 percent). Other rights that were violated included a girl's right to choose her husband with 93 cases (16.8 percent), the right to make birth decisions, which could be necessary sometimes in order to avoid health and psychological damages, with 29 cases (5.2 percent). Also, the right to work after marriage came in with 29 cases (5.2 percent). According to the report, violators of women's rights are mostly non-family members with 416 cases (75.1 percent), while the violators from within the family constituted 138 cases (24.9 percent).
The violations in terms of type were: physical with 115 cases (20.8 percent), verbal with 152 cases (27.4 percent), deprivation of rights with 364 cases (65.7 percent) and sexual harassment with 15 cases (2.5 percent).
Male inclination to dominate and always be in command is characteristic of a culture that looks down on women and their abilities in favor of men. Reported cases of such domination were 225 (40.6 percent). The second reason reported was social with 206 cases (37.2 percent) followed by financial and economic reasons. Bad economic conditions could cause damaging effects to the society because they create bad patterns of behavior that are too intense for people to handle. This was the case with 118 cases (21.3 percent) followed by cultural reasons according to 115 cases (20.8 percent).
According to abused women, the reasons for women's rights violations stem from the society's culture and poor awareness of a woman's significance and respect for her status within her community. Therefore, the greater society's awareness is of a woman's significance and active role, the higher her respect will be in that society.
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