Yemen

Six million women and girls now face heightened risks of violence, repression, and exploitation. Conflict has fueled rising rates of child marriage for girls, particularly those who are displaced. Women—especially those living under Houthi control—are barred from public spaces, regulated in their dress, and required to travel with a male guardian or his written permission. These restrictions not only inhibit women’s rights but can also increase their risk of violence by both intimate partners and state authorities, as well as impede their ability to flee from airstrikes and other threats. Women who are arrested are often imprisoned beyond their sentences, as authorities will only release them to a male relative. Yemen also continues to teeter on the edge of famine; nearly half of Yemen’s population is food insecure, and 1.5 million pregnant and nursing women suffer from acute malnutrition. Despite these conditions, Yemeni women remain at the forefront of advocacy and response. They continue to lead humanitarian initiatives and mobilize social movements, even as Houthis harass, kidnap, and imprison civil society actors and aid workers. Female politicians and activists created the Women’s Pact for Peace and Security after being excluded from the 2015 peace talks, while female relatives of the forcibly disappeared formed the Mothers of Abductees Association. These efforts continue to advocate for women’s inclusion and advance causes significant to Yemeni women. 

Yemen’s future remains precarious amidst regional volatility; although the US ended its airstrike campaign on May 6, 2025, strikes by Israeli forces continue and leave women and girls vulnerable to aid blockades, displacement, injury, and even death. Given Yemen’s reliance on foreign aid to provide basic nutrition, medical care, and safe spaces for women and girls, food insecurity and gender-based violence are expected to worsen and become more deadly as the impact of US foreign aid cuts sets in. Repression against women and girls is likely to remain entrenched and even intensify—particularly in Houthi-governed areas—with women leaders, journalists, and civil society actors at grave threat. These challenges are likely to persist as peace efforts stall and parties to the conflict take escalatory actions. 

Israel continues to strike Yemen, including Hudaydah Port, which is one of the main entry points for humanitarian aid upon which an estimated 9.6 million women and girls rely. In addition to further restricting already limited access to aid, Israeli attacks have killed or injured dozens of people. An estimated 80 percent of the nearly 4.5 million internally displaced persons are women and children, with women at the head of more than one-quarter of recently displaced households.

Advocates are sounding the alarm over Houthi-imposed social pacts that pose further restrictions on women’s freedom to marry, travel, attend school, and seek employment. This coincides with multiple public assassinations of Yemeni women activists in recent months, representing a wave of systematic violence against women in decision-making spaces.

In an escalation of ongoing attacks on aid workers in Yemen, the Houthi-run government is set to put dozens of detained UN staff on trial for allegations of ties to Israel. The defendants could face the death penalty if convicted. Such attacks on aid workers further jeopardize women and girls’ already limited access to basic services.

Funding cuts to the UNFPA have deprived more than 1.5 million women of life-saving services and forced at least 44 health facilities and 14 mobile reproductive care clinics to close. An estimated 600,000 women are projected to give birth without the support of a midwife due to the reduction of training programs. Access to reproductive care is already limited due to displacement, a shortage of qualified female providers, and conflict-related damage of healthcare infrastructure.

A new report on global food insecurity classifies Yemen as a hotspot of very high concern, highlighting economic instability, conflict, and climate shocks as catalysts for the deteriorating levels of food access. Nearly 10 million women and girls face severe hunger, and many are also impacted by increasing water scarcity. Recent funding cuts further limit already insufficient levels of humanitarian aid.

Despite Yemen’s continued position at the bottom of GIWPS’s Women, Peace and Security Index—reflecting the harsh realities for Yemeni women and girls—the country’s score has risen 21 percent since the inaugural 2017/2018 WPS Index. Such improvements reflect how women have continued to organize, lead, and rebuild despite unimaginable hardship.

Yemeni actress Intisar Al-Hammadi was freed in late October 2025, after spending nearly 5 years in a Houthi prison where she faced abuse and sexual exploitation. Al-Hammadi’s arbitrary detention in 2021 drew international condemnation, with rights groups denouncing the systematic repression of women in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen. Her release brings renewed attention to the ongoing violations against Yemeni women.