Women in Yemen: A Glimmer of Hope

Here’s a moving five minute documentary about the fight for women’s rights in Yemen from The Trials of Spring for Independent Lens.

It’s the last of a “six-part series about women who were in the front lines of the revolutions of the Arab Spring.”

Yemen was “dubbed the worst for woemen,” according to The New York Times. But revoltuion promised some feminsits a glimmer of hope.

They led the successful protest against the corrupt dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh. But soon after he was toppled, the women were pushed aside.

Another glimmer of hope for women emerged when A National Dialogue Conference was convened. Thirty percent of the available seats were reserved for women!

But once again, women’s voices were crushed. As Belquis Al Lahabi, the woman featured in the documenaty notes, “the women barely advacned at all in the reovlution.”