{{Short description, Women's organization in North Yemen
Yemeni Women's Association (YWA) was a women's organization in
North Yemen
North Yemen () is a term used to describe the Kingdom of Yemen (1918-1962), the Yemen Arab Republic (1962-1990), and the regimes that preceded them and exercised sovereignty over that region of Yemen. Its capital was Sanaa from 1918 to 1948 an ...
. Founded in 1965, as part of the emergence of the
women's movement
The feminist movement, also known as the women's movement, refers to a series of social movements and political campaigns for radical and liberal reforms on women's issues created by inequality between men and women. Such issues are women's ...
World Health Organization
The World Health Organization (WHO) is a list of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations which coordinates responses to international public health issues and emergencies. It is headquartered in Gen ...
founded an institute of nurses in
Sanaa
Sanaa, officially the Sanaa Municipality, is the ''de jure'' capital and largest city of Yemen. The city is the capital of the Sanaa Governorate, but is not part of the governorate, as it forms a separate administrative unit. At an elevation ...
staffed by Egyptian and Lebanese women, which was allowed to receive Yemeni women students. This Institute was closed when the women of the institute engaged in women's rights and held a demonstration in 1960 demanding women's rights to study and work.Amel Nejib al-Ashtal, 'A Long, Quiet, and Steady Struggle: The Women's Movement in Yemen', in Pernille Arenfeldt, Nawar Al-Hassan Golley, eds., Mapping Arab Women's Movements: A Century of Transformations ', p.280 In 1964, an Egyptian mission opened an initiative in Taiz to combat illiteracy among women, which resulted in the organisation of the women's movement in North Yemen in the form of the Yemeni Women's Association in 1965 under the chairmanship of
Fatima Owlaqi
Fatima bint Muhammad (; 605/15–632 CE), commonly known as Fatima al-Zahra' (), was the daughter of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and his wife Khadija bint Khuwaylid, Khadija. Fatima's husband was Ali, the fourth of the Rashidun caliphs and ...
. It moved to Sanaa under the leadership of Sana Hooria and Moayad Fathiya al-Jirafi in 1967.
North Yemen were much more conservative than South Yemen. In North Yemen, most women lived secluded in
harem
A harem is a domestic space that is reserved for the women of the house in a Muslim family. A harem may house a man's wife or wives, their pre-pubescent male children, unmarried daughters, female domestic Domestic worker, servants, and other un ...
s, and the women's movement did not manage to achieve the same success as in the South. After the fall of the monarchy in 1962, the new regime did little to reform the position of women in society aside from a literacy campaign in 1978 and the introduction of women's suffrage in 1980. The women's movement was met with violent opposition. In 1973, the house of the Yemeni Women's Association in Sanaa was stormed and destroyed by religious fanatics and was not able to open again until 1977 under Raufa Hassan.
On 22 May 1990, South Yemen and
North Yemen
North Yemen () is a term used to describe the Kingdom of Yemen (1918-1962), the Yemen Arab Republic (1962-1990), and the regimes that preceded them and exercised sovereignty over that region of Yemen. Its capital was Sanaa from 1918 to 1948 an ...
was united to form the
Republic of Yemen
Yemen, officially the Republic of Yemen, is a country in West Asia. Located in southern Arabia, it borders Saudi Arabia to the north, Oman to the northeast, the south-eastern part of the Arabian Sea to the east, the Gulf of Aden to the south ...