The raging conflict in Yemen is particularly violent for women and girls. Since the Houthi rebels came to power 8 years ago, women’s freedoms and rights have been constantly violated. Sentenced to death in absentia by this ultra conservative power, Dr. Nadia Al-Sakkaf, journalist and former Minister of Information had to flee her country. Today she lives in England, where she continues her work as a renowned journalist, an activist, a researcher and an expert in media, digital safety, climate change and gender.
For a Yemeni woman, Nadia’s background is atypical. At the age of 36, she was appointed as the first female Minister of Information of Yemen, and one of the youngest ministers the country has ever had. Although today she works as a researcher and an established journalist, she started her career as a computer science engineer and a systems analyst after availing professional degrees from India and in the United Kingdom. In 2005, she became the chief editor of the Yemen Times, the country’s first English-language newspaper.
Even though her position was challenging in a male dominated industry operating in a male dominated country, the Yemen Times won regional and international awards under her leadership, and she too was the recipient of many awards herself. In addition to democracy, press freedom and human rights in general, she campaigned for women’s rights and put women’s issues at the forefront of the paper including some very controversial issues such as female genital mutilation.
“First there were direct threats and intimidation when I was in the country because of my role as Minister of Information.
Nadia Al-Sakkaf
Former minister, researcher
During the Arab Spring of 2011, the mobilization of women in protests was significant and massive. In Yemen, Nadia actively wrote about the country’s events through the Yemen Times and especially about the demonstrations demanding the resignation of President Saleh. Yemen’s Arab spring ended with a power sharing deal as Saleh stepped down from power handing over to his deputy, while remaining at the helm of his political party which controlled half of the new government and most of the country’s resources.
The 2011 protests in the Arab world led the way to creating reforms at varying degrees, especially concerning women. For Yemeni women, the 30% quota in decision-making positions as an outcome of the National Dialogue Conference in 2013 was one of the highest achievements they gained. This quota was stipulated in a draft constitution that included many reforms and which Yemenis were supposed to vote for. However, unfortunately, the promise for progress didn’t last long. The Houthi rebels, a Zaidi community of Shiites, overthrew the government in January 2015 a few weeks before a national referendum was to take place on the new constitution.
Since then, the country has been bogged down in a civil war and is experiencing one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world. Women and children are suffering unprecedented violence. “When I managed to flee with my two children from the Houthi militia, they raided my house and took everything. They then posted my picture among other politicians in the streets of Sana’a, presenting us as traitors. They launched a campaign against me on social media and in the mainstream media that they control. They even created playing cards with names of so-called traitors, giving me the five of hearts, printed with a curse and a slander“.
Looking back, the exciting yet dangerous events in Nadia’s career were not the ones she thought she would have when she was a fresh graduate of high school considering her university options. With the help of a scholarship, she studied in India at one of the most prestigious engineering universities and obtained a degree in computer science engineering. The year 1999 marked a sad turning point in her life. Her father, the founder of the Yemen Times and the Arab Organization for Human Rights, was hit by a car. It was an “assassination” because of his position against Saleh’s corrupt regime. She was still studying to be an engineer, so she finished her degree with a broken heart and returned to Yemen at the end of 2000 to help out in the family paper, the Yemen Times. However, soon she availed another scholarship and went to the UK to study a master’s degree in Information Systems Management and returned to Yemen after that to work as a systems analyst at the Arab Experts Center for Consultancy and Systems.
Soon enough, she realized that she was meant to do something else, so she returned to help out with the Yemen Times but took on a new career turn working with Oxfam-Great Britain as a part of the poverty reduction and humanitarian programs. Less than three years later she was at the helm of the Yemen Times, becoming the first woman to run a national periodical in the country.
Because of her work, Nadia was recognized by the BBC as one of the 100 women who changed the world, and by the World Economic Forum as one of the worlds Young Global Leaders. She won two international awards: the Gibran Tueni Award and the Free Media Pioneers Award. Her 2011 TED talk, “See Yemen through my eyes,” is one of the best-known videos on Yemen (it has been translated into 34 languages and viewed over half a million times). She is also the first Arab woman to receive the Oslo Business for Peace Foundation award in 2013.
During the coup of 2014, being the person that she is, Nadia couldn’t stay silent when the Houthis took over, and naturally their attention was drawn to her, and her life was in danger. Luckily with the support of friends from the UN, she managed to escape the country to Jordan where she stayed for a few months before taking another drastic turn in her career and winning yet another scholarship in Sept 2015, to do her doctorate degree in Politics at the University of Reading in the UK, where she researched women’s empowerment. She says that now that she has experienced being a women in power, she needed to study what happened to her and other Yemeni women leaders. She completed her PhD in 2019 and published her thesis under the title: “Of ambition, opportunity and pretence – The Politics of Gender in Yemen.”
“I dread to think what would have happened to me if I had not managed to escape. Seeing my name on the list of traitors sentenced to death by the Houthi rebels had a strange, almost surreal effect on me. It was as if I was reading the story of a fictional character, not a real person, and certainly not me.”
Now in England, she continues her work as a researcher, in media and digital security, gender, democratic transitions, climate change and development.(1)
Nadia is an activist for Yemenis’ rights even when she is miles away from home. She is a tireless defender of the right to information including access to the Internet for all. In 2021 she co-founded Connecting Yemen, an initiative advocating for affordable and reliable access to internet to all Yemenis. It is with this vision that we met Nadia, particularly to implement the We, the Internet citizen dialogue in Yemen in 2020.
“This is a remarkable opportunity for Yemenis to celebrate the future. This is our chance to have a say in what happens to us. We need to be visible as Yemenis in the world, we want to be on the map of the world for something as positive as this, and we want to be a part of this amazing endeavor.”
Nadia is currently part of Missions Publiques’ Global Fellowship Program as well as official national partner for Yemen.
Find Nadia on Twitter at @nadiasakkaf and on LinkedIn nadia-alsakkaf
