Aisha Al-Gilany remembers the struggle all too well. For four years she fought with her parents to allow her to attend university.
“My sisters all went to grade five and then dropped out,” recalled the 23-year-old from Al-Fars Rajam village, two hours outside Sanaa, the capital.
“My parents didn’t approve of us going,” she explained, adjusting the black chador covering her face. She adheres strictly to the conservative norms that govern most Muslim women in this part of the world.
Though her parents wanted their five daughters to be literate, female education was never deemed particularly important in her village. “Women in Yemen are supposed to stay at home and clean,” Aisha said.
“Why should girls go to school?” asked 57-year-old Ahmed, a local shopkeeper.
“OK, they can go, but the priority should always be on the men,” a slightly more open-minded young man said. In Yemen, such comments are far from new, particularly in rural areas where the vast majority of the population lives.
Gender gap
The government says the gender gap with regard to education is “considerable”. While national illiteracy rates stand at about 30 percent for men, they exceed 67 percent for women, it says.
The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says access to education is one of the biggest challenges facing children in Yemen today, especially girls. Nearly half of primary school age girls do not go to school.
According to the most recent Arab Human Development Report (AHDR), the gender gap in education in Yemen is among the highest in the world. Girls’ education is a highly gender-sensitive issue, the 2005 report said, citing cultural factors like gender specific roles, early marriage, segregation between the sexes, and poverty as the primary barriers.
The gender-disparity in Yemen is the worst in the world. |
In addition to the gender gap in education, urban-rural differences were significant: 84.8 percent of urban and 68.9 percent of rural males aged 10 and above are literate, compared to only 59.5 percent of urban and 24 percent of rural females, respectively, the National Document to Promote Girls’ Education in Yemen, said in 2005.
UNDP reports that in Yemen, in primary education, females account for just 52.8 percent of the number of males that are enrolled, and in secondary education 35.3 percent of males that are enrolled - making female enrolment rates in Yemen amongst the lowest in the Arab world.
Socio-cultural versus economic factors
“The gender-disparity in Yemen is the worst in the world,” Dr Arwa Yahya Al-Deram, executive director of Soul, a local non-governmental organisation (NGO) currently working to promote female enrolment in two of the country’s 19 governorates, told IRIN in Sanaa.
Photo: NGO Soul/Sanna |
For women in Yemen, receiving an education can prove a formidable challenge |
Al-Deram, however, placed more emphasis on the economic factors than on people’s perceptions of education, saying that attitudes were not as bad as people thought. She said available financial resources were a crucial determinant of a parent’s decision on their daughter’s education, as was the local availability of schools.
“We don’t have enough schools just for girls,” she said. “The classes are mixed, and that’s not acceptable in Yemeni culture,” Al-Deram said.
“Non-availability of female teachers is a major factor often cited by parents for keeping girls away from school,” Nasim-ur-Rehman, a UNICEF spokesman in Sanaa said. Even if the schools exist, they often lacked basic amenities like a toilet, he added.
Comparison with other Arab countries
The AHDR, sponsored by the UN Development Programme (UNDP), said significant differences exist between Arab countries in giving women access to education.
Non-availability of female teachers is a major factor often cited by parents for keeping girls away from school. |
After years of persistence, Aisha’s parents finally gave in to her dream, but to this day her brothers refuse to speak to her. “They think I have brought shame onto the family, as well as the community,” she said.
Yet, for Aisha, now a second year physics student at Sanaa University, that does not matter. “It’s OK that they aren’t speaking to me,” she smiled. “Time will heal this and by then I will be an educated woman.”
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This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions