Violence against women in Yemen: official statistics and results from an exploratory victim survey

This article presents official statistics on violence against women in Yemen, as a threshold indicator of victimization incidence. Next, we present the findings from an exploratory survey into the prevalence of violent victimisation among a stratified sample of 120 women in Sana' a. We distinguish several kinds of violence. It appears that over half of the interviewed women have been threatened at some point in their lives, 55% have been abused physically, 34% have been victimized financially, and 17% are victims of sexual violence. Only 28% had not suffered at least one kind of violence. Older, married or divorced, and less educated women are at higher risk of victimisation. For those women who had been victimized, the husband was most often the perpetrator, although strangers also contributed sizeably to overall victimization. Most women report psychological damage as a consequence of the abuse and hardly ever seek help from the police. Additional qualitative findings show that many women regard the violence they have suffered as ordinary, and many regard society as being in principle against them and favouring men. We end with policy recommendations as well as recommendations for future research. © 2002, A B Academic Publishers. Printed in Great Britain. All rights reserved.