Faten Ahmed (pseudonym) is sitting on a stone next to the school where she has been working for almost 15 years, waiting for the bus that takes her with some of her classmates to their homes at the end of the schooling day. That was the moment when she started talking to "Khuyut" about her life as a teacher and a student in her village school located in Shabwa Governorate, southeast of Yemen.

This girl joined the teaching profession out of love and great conviction, thinking that reality would change for the better, and that the rural schools that suffer from negligence of the responsible authorities and the lack of educational cadres would improve one day! However, she was shocked and the shocks continue to accompany her until now. "Since I started teaching, the reality has been different from what we are now, as if the education situation, instead of getting better, is getting worse and going backwards and deteriorating," she says.

For nearly seven years, Yemen has been subject to endless destruction of the its education. Since the great turn of the war in 2015, education has witnessed a setback at all levels, especially given that it was already suffering before the war, but at least, its quality and the prestige of the teacher were much better than now.

Fatten resumes telling her story to "Khuyut": "It often happens that my colleagues and I are exposed to some circumstances out of our control, like any normal person, and when we ask for a leave, which is our right, our requests are rejected by the Education Office, although the matter is not worthy for all this complexity." She describes this refusal, starting from the school administration to the education office management of the area, as a "repressive act" against her and her classmates, which, as she asserts, pushes her to absenteeism, and thus her salary is deducted.

This teacher has a colleague who wanted to complete her university education, as Fatten states, and she actually started to enroll in the university after receiving a release decision from the Education Office, but she was surprised at the end of the first month that she had the choice between receiving the salary and returning to teaching, or being deprived of it and completing her university education. “Of course, this is unfair,” Fatten Ahmed told "Khuyut", and considers it an arbitrary measure to prevent female teachers in the countryside from improving themselves, and describes it as "humiliation" when they are bargained for a salary that does not exceed $70 at the current exchange rate, in return for their desire to rehabilitate themselves in resuming their Higher Education.

In the northern governorates of Yemen under the control of Ansar Allah (Houthis), employees there are experiencing real displacement, injustice and abuse. Four years ago, the salaries of employees have been in the "absence of the grave" since the transfer of the Central Bank from Sana'a to Aden, after the internationally recognized President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi announced in September 2016 of transferring the Central Bank and the change of its governors. This doubled the tragedies of the citizens as they have been exposed to the loss of income as a result of the scourge of war and displacement, not to mention the nightmare of homelessness that many families are exposed to after the interruption of salaries, especially since teachers and their families became among the most vulnerable people after their salaries have become among the tools of the political and military struggle between the parties to the conflict in the country.  

Girls & Education

At a time when Yemen needs all its people to bring about a noticeable positive change that pushes the peace movement forward, and the great need for all young blood in the labor market to challenge the conditions that the country is going through in all fields, there is violence of another kind being practiced against a large segment of society which are girls. The deprivation of education is imposed on them by their guardians, mostly for reasons related to customs and traditions, and the culture of shame.

These practices, which violate the right of girls to education, which are recognized in Yemeni law, have a significant negative impact that constitutes severe pressure on the country, which is basically suffering from severe economic deterioration and a shortage of human resources needed by the labor market. Thus, the country would witness great loses and a great gap whose bitterness will be affecting thousands of families in Yemen, specifically those who depended on males to be their supporter and prepared opportunities for male, and consequently lost the breadwinner in light of the continuation of the war, and in light of the economic crisis and lack of job opportunities which forced unqualified women to search for work to reduce the size of the crisis of their family, which is considered impossible and complicated under the current situation. Even if such job opportunities are available for female, it need at least high school and university graduates to be recruited.

Despite the fact that the General Education Law No. 45 of 1992 in Yemeni law, considers education a guaranteed right for all members of Yemeni society, there are statistics indicating inequality in gender education and that the enrollment rate of girls is much lower than that of boys. Perhaps one of the reasons for the high rates of inequality in education between the sexes is attributed to early marriage of girls in particular, which is one of the biggest challenges that Yemeni society suffers from. Consequently, violations of the right to a normal life for girls are still being practiced with a hazardous escalation on the future of society, and subsequently the country at large.

A Real Story

Haifa Mohammed, a 15-year-old girl, was denied a high school education because her family rejected the idea of ​​completing her education. Haifa says to "Khuyut": "At the beginning of this school year (2020/2021), I was fully prepared for the new stage in my life, which is high school. Throughout the Corona lockdown period as we had to stay at home, I was feeling very excited so that at the beginning of the school year, I told my family that I need to buy school supplies and new clothes, to start my high school year, which was a dream I had and finally will come true, but their reaction shocked me. They told me that equality between us was inevitable and that there was no way to change their decision although I did everything in my power to dissuade my family from their unfair decision against me. Unfortunately, I was refused, so I surrendered to my fate; I went back to cooking, cleaning of the house and sleeping long hours in the day."

Haifa added: "Maybe life has prevented me now from completing my education, but I am determined not to deprive my daughters from their rights of education unlike the miserable life that I and the daughters of my family lived, and the fate of my daughters will not be the home, the kitchen and marriage only, like us!"

Yemeni women are viewed as if they born to be persecuted being whose decisions are taken on their behalf to control their lives, move them and rotate them in a way that suits their guardians which is the most heinous form of violence against the humanity of women and the most shocking act that encourages escalation of violations against female. Further, it is an ignorance that society encourages, generation after generation, and a great denial of the role of women in society, whose roles are not limited to managing the affairs of the home, marriage and motherhood. As can be seen in Yemen, such practices are not limited to the countryside girls, but also in the cities, which should be an example of urbanization in its real essence, not the formal as witnessed widely in our Yemeni society.