Women are bearing the brunt of conflicts that erupted in September, 2014 when Iran-aligned Hothi insurgents orchestrated a successful coup on the regime of Hadi, sending them into exile in Saudi Arabia.
Women have become (marginalized) and subjected to all kinds of discrimination of famine, starvation, widowhood, deprivation of education and displacement due to absence of democracy since the onset of this utterly brutal war.
“The Yemeni woman is living in a catastrophe since the onset of the war,” rights activist said. “But was somehow living in a political stability before the war.”
Food Shortages
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Yemen mostly hinges upon foreign aid and relief imported through its ports and borders to feed people lacking in food shortages. Women are dying of hunger and do not know where their next meal will come from.
Here is a transcript taken from the Guardian News Outlet concerning women enduring desperately harsh conditions of living in Yemen, especially food shortages.
“We live under the cold weather. Sometimes we eat from the garbage, my little daughter cleans the home of neighbors for only $0.5 to buy us some bread to feed ourselves. Said Saud Abdo Ali who was working as a cleaner in the port city of Mokho before the war began.
“There is no food, no pure water no electricity nothing one day a businessperson came to us and gave us dishes and spoons but we told him sarcastically, “What should we do with these? Eat the soil?,” she added.
Clearly, hunger is affecting big numbers of women in war-torn country of Yemen in accordance to world organizations and international agencies.
Education Deprivation
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War has deprived hundreds of thousands of women from education access. Women, especially girls are not able to attend schools’ lessons due to conflicts hindrance and interruption as well as economic deterioration that forced many of them stop learning.
Yemen’s educational system has seen small improvements in the last decade, with an overall illiteracy rate 36% for males and 65% for females in accordance to reports.
Rural women are marginalized and subjected to ignorance due to lack of schools and teachers. Whereas, urban women are facing high rates of unemployment and political exclusion with only tiny percentage before the war.
Uprooting
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Conflicting parties- legitimate government and Hothi insurgents- triggered off millions of people, particularly women are having the lion’s share of uprooting to flee their own homes and towns, searching for safety either internally or externally.
Women are bearing consequences of brutal conflicts, bearing responsibilities of families to feed themselves and their children to survive.
“… But taking on responsibility for so much – particularly for women who are displaced and have lost their husbands, brothers and fathers to the fighting – has high stakes. Said a woman, interviewed by OCHA.
So war uprooted hundreds of thousands of women from their own homes and territories onto other areas where there is no seen for conflicts either internally or externally.
Widowhood
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The war left a toll of more than ten thousand people who have been killed during the 1,000 days of war since it began in 2014. There must be a least a third of casualties’ men who are been married lost their lives in conflicts.
So women have been widowed owing to conflicts that erupted in 2014. Widows are having desperately harsh conditions of living to meet their daily basic needs of food and cover schools costs of their children. Tens of thousands of widows hinges upon foreign aid.
“I lost my husband who is the pulse of the family almost a year ago because of war, so now we struggle hard in order to survive,” a bereaved woman said.
The struggle of women in Yemen remained for those years and will remain unless serious action are taken to protect the country of a catastrophe that never ends.