Progress Amid Resistance

YEMEN 549was amended to allow a Yemeni woman to transfer her citizenship to herchild if the father is unknown or if he has no nationality.Several NGOs have played an active role in calling for equal citizenshiprights. The Women’s Forum for Research and Training, a YemeniNGO dedicated to women’s rights, highlighted the issue in the contextof CEDAW. Moreover, the Sisters’ Arab Forum for Human Rights (SAF)in March 2008 organized the fourth Democratic Forum, which discussedthe legal challenges that hinder women’s political participation, includingthose concerning their citizenship rights. 4Women are also treated unequally in the Crimes and Penal Code (No.12 of 1994). According to Article 42, the financial compensation (diyya,or blood money) owed to the family of a murdered or wrongfully killedwoman is half that owed to the family of a male victim. The same articlemandates that aroush, the compensation owed to a person if they havebeen permanently injured, is three times larger for an injured man than foran injured woman. Article 232 stipulates that a husband who kills his wifeand her adulterous partner upon witnessing them in the act of adultery issubject to fines or up to one year in prison. This very lenient punishmentalso covers murders committed by men who find a female relative in anadulterous situation. Women who are beaten by their male relatives uponsuspicion of extramarital sex are often left without any legal protection.According to police officers cited in a study on such “honor crimes” inYemen, women who turn to the police for help are typically brought backto their male relatives. 5Article 273 of the penal code criminalizes “shameful” or “immoral”acts, loosely defined as “any act that violates public discipline or publicdecency,” including nudity or exposing oneself. Violations are punishableby fines of up to 1,000 riyals or as much as one year in prison. Theterms “public discipline” and “public decency” are left to the interpretationof police officers and judges, subject to each region’s customs and traditions.Consequently, some women have been detained simply for beingalone with men who are not their relatives. 6 Poor women or those whoare members of marginalized groups, such as the Akhdam or Somali andEthiopian refugees, are more likely to be detained or arbitrarily arrested onsuch grounds.Political motives have also led to the arbitrary arrests of female humanrights activists. For example, Hanan al-Wada’ai, an officer for the Child’s