ABSTRACT
On 7 July 1994 army units loyal to the government of President Ali Abdullah Salih, backed by the militia of the Islamist Reform Grouping or Islah (al-tajammu al-yamani lil lil-islah), entered Aden, the capital of the former southern Yemeni state, thereby in effect unifying North and South Yemen under one rule for the first time in modern history. Thus ended, through a military offensive launched two months earlier by the president, the interim period that had prevailed since the former North and South had agreed on unity in May 1990. Few countries in the world can be as ‘divided’ as Yemen, a country the majority of which had never experienced even the centralizing of colonial rule, and where a series of civil conflicts have, since the early 1960s, enhanced the position of tribal forces vis-à-vis the state. The now unified country was, until 1990, formally divided into two states, North and South. Within each there are, moreover, profound variations of region, tribe and religious sect. In the south, in addition to tribal division, there are marked contrasts between the capital, Aden, the tribal hinterland of the west, and the eastern districts, the Hadramaut. In the more populous north, where no central government has ever consolidated itself, a weak state faces tribal groups that are autonomous in military and social organization, while the population is split between the Zeidi Shi’ites and Shafei Sunnis. If a formally united state does now exist it presides over a most centrifugal society, one made all the more diverse by an influx of guns and the retribalization that has affected the South since 1994. The discussion that follows will examine changes in women’s rights between 19901994. This was the ‘transitional period’ agreed on with the introduction of unity in May 1990 and which continued through the elections of April 1993 and the ensuing months of tension and conflict (Carapico 1993; Detalle 1993).1 Up to July 1994, and despite the 1990 agreement and the subsequent elections, Yemen remained, in large measure, two countries. A formal government and Constitution presided over two state machineries, including two armies and two political and security apparatuses, neither of which was prepared to yield ground significantly to the other and engage in a complete merger. The uncertainties and distrust inherent in this situation were to emerge much more clearly after the April 1993 elections. Mounting stress led progressively to a situation of great tension, and then to the civil war that exploded at the end of April 1994, when president Salih launched his offensive against the south (Kostiner 1996; Nairn 1993; Watkins and Makin 1993). This is not the place to go into the history of this ‘unification’ process, nor to examine
the reasons why a process initially embarked on in a political and constitutional manner should have ended in civil war (Braun 1992; Dunbar 1992; Hall 1991; Halliday 1990: Chapter 4). The purpose here is, rather, to examine how one aspect of state policy in Yemen, that pertaining to women’s rights and status, was affected by this ‘unification’ process: such a study may illuminate both the particular issue of gender-state relations and how these were affected by some of the conflicting political currents operating within Yemen in this period. Along with other areas of policy, changes in the legal and social position of women formed an important, and complex, part of the transition through which the Yemen passed in the early 1990s: as elsewhere in the Islamic world, the codification and implementation of the law reflected the impact of various political and social, as well as strictly legal, factors. As the following analysis will seek to show, the evolution of legislation on the family and on women in Yemen during the four-year ‘transition period’ was as much a microcosm of the overall shifts and conflicts in Yemeni politics, as it was a reflection of a strictly jurisprudential process. It demonstrated both the relative weakness of women as a distinct social and political force and, at the same time, the importance which some parties attributed to this question. Prior to unification in 1990, the difference between the two Yemeni states was graphically reflected in, amongst other domains, the legislation pertaining to the family and to women’s rights. While that of the Yemen Arab Republic, or ‘North’ Yemen, represented a more conservative legislative approach embodying both secular Arab nationalist and religious elements, that of the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY), or ‘South’ Yemen, was, despite certain concessions to Islam, a secular code, arguably the most egalitarian in the Arab world. During this period the division between the two political and legal systems was eroded, in effect by the prevailing of the northern code over the southern. This involved, among other changes, the adoption, after parliamentary and some press debate, of a new Decree of Personal Conditions, under presidential decree in March 1992 (Republic of Yemen 1992). The fact that it was introduced during Ramadan was probably deliberate, reflecting the hope that its promulgation would not attract undue hostility, especially in the South. Although subject to ratification by the parliament, this decree was, under the Yemeni Constitution then in force, legally binding: it therefore reflected the balance of influence and power within the new state. But precisely because there was widespread disagreement about where power lay in the new state the drafting, introduction and, even more so, the implementation of the new law were themselves objects of dispute and conflict in the society. The family law was, therefore, both a reflection of the changed situation in Yemen and itself part of this political process, prior to and subsequent to its promulgation. The discussion that follows will examine the different fates of these two bodies of legislation.
