Houthi gender rules hold foreign aid workers back
Female aid workers in north Yemen cannot do their job tackling one of the world’s most severe humanitarian crises as tightening male guardianship rules by Houthi authorities restrict their movement, nine female humanitarians say.
When women refuse to take a guardian, they cannot travel to oversee aid projects, collect data or deliver health and other services. When women do take one, gender-sensitive work is difficult and aid budgets must bear extra costs.
One health project manager normally conducts 15-20 visits a year to projects around the country, but said she had not made any since the rules requiring Yemeni female aid workers be accompanied by a close male relative — a mahram in Arabic — were implemented a year ago.
“I don’t have a lot of men in my family,” she said. Some women struggle to find guardians because relatives are against them working. “Sometimes a woman works without informing someone in her family.”
She improvises with video calls, but knows other women have lost jobs because they cannot work effectively.
Yemen’s conflict has divided the country between the Iranaligned Houthis in north Yemen and an internationally recognised government in the south, supported by a Saudi Arabia-led military coalition.
The conflict has wrecked the economy and destroyed the health system, with two-thirds of Yemen’s 30-million people in need of humanitarian assistance. Aid groups say female-headed households are more vulnerable to food insecurity and difficulties in accessing aid.
Without female staff in the field, aid groups say they have trouble doing things as simple as identification checks on women, who may need to lift their face veils, to distribute food aid.
“Mahram requirements are making it even more challenging for humanitarian interventions to reach the most marginalised female programme participants,” said one representative of a nutrition and sanitation NGO.
For the past year, female Yemeni aid workers have had to take a mahram when crossing provincial borders controlled by the Houthi group, a religious, political and military movement. In four provinces, they even need a guardian to move within.
“Female [Yemeni] staff haven’t been able to work outside our offices for almost two years, which is catastrophic for their development, morale, motivation, and also most obviously for us reaching women and girls in the field in a culturally sensitive way,” said an employee of another NGO. The quality of its work on food and health provision has been “very damaged”, she added.
The women all requested anonymity because they feared for their safety if identified.
A spokesperson for the Houthis’ aid co-ordination body SCMCHA said they supported the delivery of aid, but organisations should respect traditions.
“Mahram is a religious Islamic obligation and a belief culture ... Why do organisations put up obstacles to Islamic teachings and Yemeni culture?” he said.
The Houthis, or Ansar Allah, follow the Zaydi sect of Shiite Islam and have been promoting conservative social values — also what clothing may be worn — since ousting the government from Sanaa in 2014.