YEMEN: Candidacy of First Woman for President Puts Spotlight on Equality

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Nabil Sultan

SANA'A, Dec 21 2005 (IPS) - As a recent Arab women’s conference came to a close, Sumayah Ali Raja, chair of the Yemen-French Forum, announced she would run in the September 2006 presidential elections. But even her supporters are only cautiously optimistic, pointing to the many cultural obstacles women in politics face in an Arab country.

Raja will be the first woman to run for president of Yemen. She said in her address to more than 300 conference participants from the Arab world, Europe and the United States that her candidacy would help all Yemeni women attain their legal and constitutional rights.

“My candidacy will increase the participation of women in different fields. My nomination will also improve women’s political role in the country,” said Raja.

She called upon the Yemeni political parties and civil society organisations, particularly women’s groups, to support her.

Opening the conference “Women’s Rights in the Arab World: from words to deeds”, Prime Minister Abdul-Qader Ba-Jammal encouraged women to fight for their rights, pointing out that Yemen was a country of queens, referring to Queen Bilqis (also known as the Queen of Sheba) in 530 AD and Queen Arwa in 1065.

The prime minister promised that his government would take the conference’s recommendations into consideration, and vowed compliance with all international conventions ratified by Yemen regarding women.

Ba-Jammal urged local political parties to adopt a quota system that would give women 15 percent of their parliamentary seats, promising that the ruling party, the General People’s Congress (GPC), would commit to such quota in the coming parliamentary elections.

But Ba-Jammal and many others, even participating women’s rights activists and leaders, had not expected Raja’s announcement.

Observers say it was an ideal opportunity to publicise the idea of a future female president. However, they believe a woman’s candidacy will face many political, social and religious challenges.

Nadya al-Hadrami, member of the Yemeni Women’s Union, said in an IPS interview that she thinks it is difficult to sway people about the role of women in society and their capacity to participate in decision-making positions, so it will be difficult for them to accept a female president. “But let us try.”

“I know I will face difficulties, but we women have to convey a message to all that we can take power,” Raja herself told IPS.

The Yemeni people and the political elite seem to hold similar views about political participation. They may believe women can hold some high government posts, but not positions of great power.

The conference in Sana’a last week revealed that women’s status in the Middle East needs improvement in all fields, whether political, economic, social or cultural.

Under the theme “From Words to Deeds”, a conference statement noted that “violence against women and unequal opportunity in the Arab world are still prevalent in both rural and urban areas.”

The participants collectively urged the Arab governments that have not ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) to do so immediately.

It also criticised some signatory countries for having subsequently passed legislation contradicting CEDAW principles.

The Convention was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1979, ahead of the World Conference on the UN Decade for Women, held in Copenhagen the next year.

The Sana’a convention, organised by the Yemeni Ministry of Human Rights and financed by the UN Development Programme and several Western governments, further called on Arab governments to “promulgate national legislation aimed at enforcing women’s rights and to exclude all discriminatory articles.”

The statement cited national personal-status and citizenship laws as common examples of discriminatory legislation in some Arab countries.

Further, the conference called for “necessary actions” to guarantee greater female representation in the political decision-making process, such as a quota system in general elections and the appointment of women to executive and judiciary positions.

In an effort toward reaching these ends, the conference made a number of recommendations. It urged, for example, the improvement of women’s education and elimination of the high female illiteracy rates in the Arab world through free and compulsory education in rural and urban areas alike.

The conference also recommended that civil society organisations should be granted a consultative role in drafting legislation and overseeing its implementation.

The conference, also attended by participants from non-Arab nations, covered more than just women’s issues.

In its final statement, the conference also advocated the “right of return” for Palestinian refugees displaced by Israeli occupation, and the “release of all female Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons.”

It also called for terminating “the U.S. invasion of Iraq and immediate intervention to end human rights violations suffered by Iraqis, especially those faced by Iraqi women.”

During the same week, the Arab Women’s Union held a symposium to reactivate the union.

Representatives from Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Jordan took part in the symposium. The meeting was also attended by the chairwoman of the Indian Women’s Union and some U.S. women leaders.

The symposium’s main aim was to unify Arab women, to fight for their legal rights and to further their involvement in the national revival and development of the Arab world.

“Arab women, who have had their rights since the beginning of Islam, now suffer from injustice due to political, social, cultural and economical circumstances that prevent them from getting all their rights,” Suad Bakour, chairwoman of the Syrian Women’s Union, told IPS.

“Arab women have to overcome many obstacles, in the form of traditions and customs and gaps in the laws, which work to keep women down, and prevent us from participating enough in the political life,” Ramzya al-Eryani, chair of Yemeni Women’s Union and newly elected as secretary-general of the Arab Women’s Union, told IPS.