متى حصلت المرأة على حق المشاركة في العمل السياسي في اليمن؟
Women in Yemen have always had limited participation in society, as men are considered the primary decision makers both inside and outside the household. Thus, women have always been grossly underrepresented in Yemeni politics. This has not, however, prevented women from trying to make their voices heard through strikes and peaceful protests. Some progress has been made since 2011, as the 2011 Uprising challenged the norm of women's limited participation. Women were at the heart of protests, demanding and protesting for a better political life. Then in 2014, women represented more than one quarter of the participants in the National Dialogue Conference (NDC). Through that, women of Yemen achieved important agreements, including the 30% quota for women's political participation. During the NDC, many women delegates were publicly threatened for participating and were even physically attacked on the streets. To support the women and their movements, several women's human rights organisations, such as the Sisters Arab Forum for Human Rights, increased their efforts and encouraged women to continue participating and fighting for the issues they were passionate about. The international community applauded the positive outcomes of the NDC process as this was a very significant change for women's participation in the Yemeni politics, in comparison to the previous years. In fact, in 2008 an attempt was made to introduce 15% quota for women in parliament, however this process was abandoned, after Islamic clerics and tribal chiefs intervened and held a ‘Meeting for Protecting Virtue and Fighting Vice,’ proclaiming that a woman's place is at home. In the former national parliament, women held only 0.3% of the seats.
2011