Yemen, officially the Republic of Yemen, is a sovereign state in West Asia. Located in the southern Arabian Peninsula, it borders Saudi Arabia to the north, Oman to the northeast, and the Indian Ocean to the south, sharing maritime borders with Eritrea, Djibouti and Somalia across the Horn of Africa. Covering roughly 528,000 square kilometres, with a coastline of approximately 2,000 kilometres, Yemen is the second largest country on the Arabian Peninsula. Sanaa is its constitutional capital and largest city. Yemen's estimated population is 34.7 million, comprised mostly of Arab Muslims. It is a member of the Arab League, the United Nations, the Non-Aligned Movement and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.
South Yemen, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen, officially abbreviated to Democratic Yemen, was a state that existed from 1967 to 1990 as the only communist state in the Middle East and the Arab world. It was made up of the southern and eastern governorates of the present-day Republic of Yemen, including the island of Socotra. It was bordered by North Yemen to the North-West, Saudi Arabia to the North, and Oman to the East.
Islamic feminism is a form of feminism concerned with the role of women in Islam. It aims for the full equality of all Muslims, regardless of gender, in public and private life. Islamic feminists advocate for women's rights, gender equality, and social justice grounded in an Islamic framework. Although rooted in Islam, the movement's pioneers have also utilized secular, Western, or otherwise non-Muslim feminist discourses, and have recognized the role of Islamic feminism as part of an integrated global feminist movement.
Leila Ahmed is an Egyptian-American scholar of Islam. In 1992 she published her book Women and Gender in Islam, which is regarded as a pioneering historical analysis of the position of women in Arab Muslim societies. She became the first professor of women's studies in religion at Harvard Divinity School in 1999, and has held the Victor S. Thomas Professor of Divinity chair since 2003. She was later awarded the Victor S. Thomas Research Professor of Divinity in 2020.
Hujum refers to a broad campaign undertaken by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to remove all manifestations of gender inequality within the Union Republics of Central Asia. Beginning in the Stalinist era, it particularly targeted prevalent practices among Muslims, such as female seclusion from society and female veiling practices. While it was often symbolized by the burning of the veils that Muslim women wore, the removal of veiling practices was not the campaign's sole goal. The Party began re-emphasizing their message of women's liberation within class consciousness. By abolishing Central Asian societal norms and heralding in women's liberation, the Soviets believed they could clear the way for the construction of socialism. The campaign's purpose was to rapidly change the lives of women in Muslim societies so that they would be able to actively participate in public life, formal employment, education, and ultimately membership in the Communist Party. It was originally conceived to enforce laws that gave equality to women in patriarchal societies by creating literacy programs and bringing women into the workforce.
The roles of women in the Arab world have changed throughout history, as the culture and society in which they live has undergone significant transformations. Historically, as well as presently, the situation of women differs greatly between Arabic speaking regions, their urban or rural population and age groups. Among other factors, these differences can be attributed to local traditions, culture and religion, women's social or legal status, their level of education, health or self-awareness. Since the 19th century, and notably through the influence of the colonization in North Africa, the Arab Renaissance in Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria, and the end of the Ottoman Empire, the social and economic changes in the Arab world have become greatly accelerated and diversified.
The political, social and economic status of women in Jordan has varied based on the legal, traditional, cultural and religious values at the time. Women's rights and experiences in Jordan also depended on other factors, such as class, place of origin, religion, and other factors. These influences also vary by region, with the Bedouins, Druze, and Chechen peoples each having their own distinct cultural practices and habits. In recent years, there have been significant changes in women's participation in politics, as well as increased involvement in the arts and sports. However, according to the 2020 World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Index, which measures economic behavior, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment, Jordan ranks 138 out of 153 nations in terms of gender equality.
Various styles of head coverings, most notably the khimar, hijab, chador, niqab, paranja, yashmak, tudong, shayla, safseri, carşaf, haik, dupatta, boshiya and burqa, are worn by Muslim women around the world, where the practice varies from mandatory to optional or restricted in different majority Muslim and non-Muslim countries.
Women in Yemen have historically been placed at a disadvantage due to their gender, with a highly patriarchal society. Although the government of Yemen has made efforts that will improve the rights of women in Yemen, many cultural and religious norms, along with poor enforcement of this legislation from the Yemeni government, have prevented Yemeni women from having equal rights to men.
In a predominantly Muslim society, as many as 90% of women in Egypt have adopted a form of veiling. A majority of Egyptian women cover at least their hair with the hijab. A hijab refers to a head covering that is worn by Muslim women. Although the phenomenon of wearing the niqāb, a veil which covers the face is not as common, the niqab in Egypt has become more prevalent. While a few women in Egypt wear a black niqab along with a billowing black abaya as seen in countries such as Saudi Arabia, many choose to wear different colors of the niqab or manipulate the hijab to cover their face. Regardless, the growing trend of munaqqabat, or women who wear the niqab, has alarmed the authorities. They have begun to see this dress as a security threat, because it hides the face, and because it is perceived as a political statement, a rejection of the state in favor of a strict Islamic system.
The Yemeni Congregation for Reform, frequently called al-Islah, is a Yemeni Sunni Islamist movement established in 1990 by Abdullah ibn Husayn al-Ahmar, Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, Abdul Majeed al-Zindani, with Ali Saleh's blessing. The first article of Islah basic law defines it as "a popular political organization that seeks reform of all aspects of life on the basis of Islamic principles and teachings".
Huda al-Ban is a Yemeni politician. She was Yemen's Minister of Human Rights until 20 March 2011, when she resigned in protest to the government's sniper attacks on protesters during the 2011 Yemen protests.
The Women's National Committee of Yemen is a government-affiliated body working to empower women. Local Yemenis work on the committee in coordination with national and international partners to safeguard women's fundamental human rights. The Millennium Development Goals provide the framework guiding the committee's main policy priority areas.
The South Yemen civil war, colloquially referred to as the events of '86 or the events of January 13, or more simply as the events, was a failed coup d'etat and armed conflict which took place on January 13, 1986, in South Yemen. The civil war developed as a result of ideological differences, and later tribal tensions, between two factions of the ruling Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP), centred on Abdul Fattah Ismail's faction, at-Toghmah, and Ali Nasir Muhammad's faction, az-Zomrah, for the leadership of the YSP and the PDRY. The conflict quickly escalated into a costly civil war that lasted eleven days and resulted in thousands of casualties. Additionally, the conflict resulted in the demise of much of the Yemeni Socialist Party's most experienced socialist leadership cadre, contributing to a much weaker government and the country's eventual unification with North Yemen in 1990.
Arab nationalism is a political ideology asserting that Arabs constitute a single nation. As a traditional nationalist ideology, it promotes Arab culture and civilization, celebrates Arab history, glorifies the Arabic language as well as Arabic literature, and calls for the rejuvenation of Arab society through total unification. It bases itself on the premise that the people of the Arab world — from the Atlantic Ocean to the Arabian Sea — constitute one nation bound together by a common identity: ethnicity, language, culture, history, geography, and politics.
Atiaf Zaid Al-Wazir is a Yemeni researcher, human rights activist, citizen journalist and blogger and co-founder of the media advocacy group Support Yemen. Al-Wazir lived in Tunis, Tunisia then she is currently in Brussels, Belgium.
Slavery in Yemen was formally abolished in the 1960s. However, it has been reported that enslavement still occurred in the 21st-century.
Amatalrauf "Raufa Hassan" al-Sharki was an educator, feminist and human rights activist from Yemen. She was a professor of mass media and the director of a Women's Studies Center at the University of Sana'a. Al-Sharki was the first female journalist in Yemen and wrote a regular newspaper column for many years.
Adila Bayhum-al-Jazairi (1900-1975) was a Syrian feminist, independence activist and philanthropist. She was a pioneer of the Syrian women's movement, as well as supporter of Syrian independence from France.
Adeni Women's Club was a women's organization in Yemen, founded in 1943. It was the first organisation of women's rights in Yemen, and the beginning of the women's rights movement in Yemen.
