A young woman committed suicide in the al-Mahabsha district in Yemen’s Hajjah governorate late last week, after a court ordered that she be returned from her family home to her husband’s. This sparked national demands for legislative reforms to women’s rights, according to local media reports.
The woman reportedly jumped from her family’s roof only a short time after getting married, according to AlmahriahTV. She initially returned to her family home following “disputes” with her husband, but a judge ordered her return.
While media reports have suggested the woman was in her early 20s, prominent members of the Yemeni community alleged that the girl was only 16 years old. Arabic Saudi Arabian daily newspaper Ozak also reported that she was three months pregnant at the time of her death.
Public outcry for increased protection for women
The incident has led to public demands for greater protection for women, according to the Yemeni site.
Rabyaah Al-Thaibani, a US-based Yemeni activist previously featured for her activism in Margins Magazine, claimed that the girl had been forced to marry her husband.
“What kind of religion is this? This is not the Islam I know,” she said. “The Islam I know is that when a girl says, ‘I don’t want to,’ then that’s it. Forcing her is against the religion. Who is this judge? On what basis did he force a girl, who is also a minor, under 16, to do this? This is a crime, a horrific crime that we all need to speak about.”
“At 16, they married her off by force,” she continued. “They forced her to return to him by force. And what was the result? She went up to the roof and threw herself. This happened in Houthi-controlled areas, under the Sanaa authorities. You are supposed to go and hold them accountable and make an example of them. Make an example of the father, this criminal, the husband, and the ruler, and put them on trial. You call yourselves Muslims – this is disbelief.”
The young woman’s death has especially angered activists as it followed the dismemberment of a woman by her husband in the Raymah governorate, according to Ozak.
The incident in Yemen comes within days of the suicide of Egyptian blogger Basant Suleiman. Al Jazeera reported that she threw herself from the 13th floor of a building after her husband refused to grant her a divorce and left the country without providing financial support for her or her children.
Yemen expert Inbal Nissim-Louvton, from the Open University and the Moshe Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday that the rights of women have declined in Yemen since the start of the civil war, even in the country’s South.
Women cannot fly, travel across districts, or study with ease, she explained. “In the Houthi territory, the situation for women is much worse because the Houthis try to apply religious law, Zaydi law, and their interpretation of it, which makes life for women even more difficult,” she said. “For example, they have this morality police of women… it’s basically similar to the Iranian morality police, which is also looking to preserve dress code and to ensure that women are not out in the public sphere without a male guardian.”