Hibaaq Osman: Women Leading the Way in Yemen

Posted on: April 19, 2013, by :

The Huffington Post recently published this op-ed by Karama CEO and Founder, Hibaaq Osman:

Glued simultaneously to the TV, Blackberry, laptop, and my own windows, I watched Arab politics come back to life just a few short weeks ago. As someone who has devoted her life to promoting women’s human rights and political participation, I continue to rejoice at the role women are playing in the ongoing revolutions spreading across the Arab world. The Western media seem surprised that women are on the streets, raising their voices, protesting for democracy, and walking side by side with men who all want the same thing — political reform and equal rights. They shouldn’t be.

As I write this, all eyes are on Yemen. The country’s president of 32 years, Ali Abdullah Saleh, had signaled a desire to step down by the end of 2011 or sooner, but suddenly reversed this decision, declaring that he would make no further concessions to end the crisis. This move is unlikely to placate the growing ranks of opposition members. As even more generals and diplomats move into the opposition camp, the questions are: will Yemen follow the route chosen by Egypt and Tunisia, in which the military stepped in to engineer a swift transition of power, or will Yemen become another Libya, where the elite have fractured into a civil war?

Read the full article at the Huffington Post