Conflict affected women in Yemen – between a rock and a hard place
What is the first thing you think of when I say Yemen? When I left for this country one week ago, my first thoughts were of suicide bombers and tourists being killed. Influenced by Western media, I saw Yemen as the breeding ground for Al’Qaida, axes of evil, well, you know.
After a week of being in Yemen, what would be the first thing I think about? Beauty, magic, women in black, and Quat. Working here with the United Nations to assess the functioning of the health response to people affected by the conflict in the North of the country, I have had a small taste of the magic and difficulty of this place.
The dangers here are real, and not to be underestimated, with rebellion in the North, refugees from Somalia in the South and separatist movements from both areas, this country is far from stable. In fact I saw some of the direct effects of that in the camps for displaced people in the North of the country. An estimated 200,000 people fled the 6th round of fighting going on in the Sa’daa district, as Saudi Arabia has closed its border to these people, they are forced to flee south, within Yemen.
Imagine living in a tent in heat that rises up to 60 degrees Celsius, having had the trauma of war, fleeing everything that you know, your house, your neighbours, your life. The people I saw near the town of Harad were exactly in that position. Around 30,000 of them have found room in camps run by UNHCR, Islamic Relief and the Red Cresent of the United Emirates, but most are living in makeshift shelter, not even a tent to call their own.
Again, imagine you are a woman in this position. Vulnerable by all accounts in Yemen, women often bear the brunt of conflict. Sexual violence increases, female headed households increase, and means to access food, education and health care decrease.
But it is also always the women that amaze, the power and resilience they show to get on with life and provide for their children is inspiring. To be able to be this strong, women need access to reproductive health care. They need to be able to have safe deliveries, but also, in these situations maybe more than ever, they need to be able to exercise choice. Access to family planning and safe abortion services are crucial in order to not break the fabric of these societies even more, and to make the most of these women’s strength to keep families and communities together in times of hardship.
In Yemen, safe abortion is not talked about, but in the health centres of the camps, run by the Ministry of Health, WHO and Medecins Sans Frontieres, there was access to family planning. Only one method was really available, the pill. According to the midwives, condoms were not accepted by the men. While availability for other methods remains a large gap, it was encouraging to see the access to family planning in these dire conditions.
However, all the people not in camps do not have this access and their needs continue to be very high. Marie Stopes International will continue to work with the humanitarian response to advocate for the reproductive health needs of these people, and hopefully also soon open up a clinic in Harad, for all women to access. I hope this will happen and that this clinic will be like the Marie Stopes International clinic I saw in Sana’a. If this is the case, the women in and around Harad will have access to an extraordinary level of reproductive health care and friendly and knowledgeable staff and a level of choice that should be available to all women everywhere.