Womens rights discussed [Archives:2002/32/Reportage]

YEMEN TIMES STAFF
Under the auspices of Prime Minister Abdulqadir Ba Jammal and the President of the Supreme Council for Women, the Arab Sisters Forum organized on Thursday, the first of August a national consultative meeting under the motto Womens rights between the challenge of law and reality. The event was attended by Mr. Abdulkarim al-Arhabi Minister of Social Affairs, Mr. Ali Saleh Abdullah Deputy Minister of Social Affairs, Mrs. Amal al-Basha Director of the Sisters Arab Forum, Mrs. Rajani Khana Oxfam-Britain, Mrs. Hooria Mashoor Deputy Chairman of the Womens National Committee, and distinguished participants and guests.
Mrs. Amal al-Basha, the host and Director of the Forum gave a welcome speech in which she emphasized the importance of organizing such a meeting to raise awareness among women and civil society organizations as well as the whole society on the need to focus on womens rights in Yemen. This meeting aims at starting a dialogue to discuss an important issues resembled in the need to get more justice and equality for all citizens alike she said.
She appealed to the government to modify some of the constitutions articles that are openly considered discriminative including articles on nationality, law of penalties, etc. In this meeting, I ask the government to eliminate all shapes of discrimination against women according to the constitutions articles which guarantee equality in duties and rights for both genders she commented.
Mrs. Hooria Mashoor praised the crucial role that the forum had played in such a short time in keeping pace with new events and global changes. Quoting from the Holy Quaran, she stressed that Islam guarantees rights of women and pointed out that many families still use force to have their young daughters marry in an early age, depriving them from education and other rights. She stressed on the need to mobilize the frozen articles of the constitution that are related to womens rights.
Then, Mrs. Rajani Khana gave a speech in which she said, We are happy that the Republic of Yemen has signed the Convention to Eliminate Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), which demonstrates its commitment to promote womens rights. Moreover the Yemeni society is becoming increasingly aware of this instrument and is beginning to present its perspectives and viewpoints by filing their own Shadow Report on CEDAW that is going to be discussed at the forthcoming UN special session to be held in New York in August.
She added that the workshop is an exciting and challenging process that requires transparency, trust, solidarity and commitment to move towards gender equality in Yemen
Mr. AbdulKarim al-Arahbi, praised the efforts in holding the event and thanked the participants by saying, it is a pleasant moment to see that women have becomes aware of their rights and can frankly express their views benefiting from the given democratic margin they have he said.
The government has exerted s lot of efforts despite Yemens strict and conservative society to enable women to participate in all effective sectors of life. We encourage women to continue in this path and wish them all success and hope they could achieve their expectations. he concluded.
Two workshops followed the inauguration ceremony. During those workshops, four papers were submitted by Mr. Izzeddin al-Asbahi Director of the Human Rights Information and Training Center, Soha Bashreen Media Consular in the forum, Mrs. Amal al-Basha and Hooria Mashoor. Following the workshops, the draft of the shadow report was presented.

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