Our Women on the Ground

by Zahra Hankir

  In Yemen, men and women interact completely differently from the way they do in the U.S. or other Western countries. Women must limit their interactions with the opposite sex, unless the man is a close relative. In public, women dress conservatively—more conservatively than in many other Muslim countries, with most wearing burqas.

  From a logistical perspective, this conservatism means it’s extremely difficult to be a woman photographer in Yemen. As a female, it’s nearly impossible for me to capture images in places where women are simply not allowed to be, like the main areas of mosques, social gatherings with men, and sporting events. What’s more, we also can’t take photographs at night, as women rarely leave their homes in the evening in Yemen. (I usually take photos from seven a.m. till the sun begins to set and it is time for mughrib—evening prayers.)

  At one newspaper where I worked, I had to convince my manager to allow me to cover the funeral of a Yemeni Jewish teacher who had been murdered—even though I had already been assigned to cover the trial of the murderer—because the event was in the public sphere. Eventually, my manager agreed to give me a chance, with the caveat that the newspaper would not cover my travel expenses. Accepting the terms, I paid for my own taxi and bus rides, finished my work, and submitted my photos. The next day, a front-page story on the teacher’s funeral appeared in the newspaper, along with five of my photos.

  Despite that front-page success, I wasn’t able to secure jobs I applied for afterward at several different newspapers. It was clear that the various publications did not want a female photographer on staff. Why bring a woman on board to do a job that would require her to be able to move about without restrictions?

  I had very few choices—I could have given up photography altogether, or worked as a freelancer, which would have offered me very little stability. Fortunately, I found work as a fixer for U.S. journalists, which has allowed me to continue working as a photographer in my spare time.

  For nearly a decade, I have been photographing Yemeni women in prisons, in their homes, in the desert, and in rural and urban areas. There are indeed advantages to being a woman photojournalist, particularly with assignments involving women and family. I have been able to access the most personal and private of spaces for women, in which they can express themselves comfortably. I have photographed a number of young women who had been married off at a very young age, for example, and they felt comfortable working with me simply because I am a Yemeni woman, too. They would never have allowed a man, or a foreigner, to capture images of them. I consider the intimate access I have to women’s lives and thoughts to be a gift.

  In my photography, I try to evoke the nuances of how these women care for all those who surround them—their partners, parents, children, relatives, neighbors. I have photographed weddings, engagements, baby showers, family gatherings, and religious celebrations. I had to develop intimate friendships with these women before they lowered their guards. Sometimes, they allow me to take photographs of their faces, but then ask me not to publish them for fear of reprisals from their families.

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  It was this access that led me to put together a project called “Yemeni Women with Fighting Spirits,” featuring pioneering and resilient women who have taken fate into their own hands despite the odds stacked against them.

  Saadiya Eissa Soliman Abdullah is one of those women. I met her in the summer of 2014 during a reporting trip to the Yemeni island of Socotra. Thanks to Socotra’s location—it’s about four hundred miles from the mainland—the island had mostly remained shielded from decades of conflict in Yemen. (Since 2004, the Iran-backed Houthi rebels have been locked in conflict with the Yemeni military.)

  As conflict rages on in mainland Yemen, Saadiya has been fighting her own little war. She and her seven children live off the land, just as her parents and grandparents did before her. But for fourteen years she has been struggling to keep that land from a local tribe whose members claim they’re the rightful owners. The tribe has attacked Saadiya repeatedly because she and her family host tourists as guests, therefore benefiting from ecotourism. She was once assaulted by tribesmen who broke into her home and threw rocks at her, leaving her head with a gaping cut. She was also held in a male prison for fifty days. But she never gave up.

  During my trip to Socotra, I woke up with Saadiya at four a.m. to follow her throughout her day as she tended to her goats and sheep and fed her family fish she’d caught with her own hands. On the island, she was able to move around freely, and so was I. While spending time with Saadiya, I was inside a world even Yemenis themselves do not see. People on the island don’t follow the same customs as Yemenis on the mainland. Socotrans greet each other by shaking hands, looking into each other’s eyes, and then touching noses.

  There is something particularly whimsical and otherworldly about Saadiya and her surroundings. She loves her trees—which she planted herself—and her birds as much as she loves her children. “See all those birds?” Saadiya asked me as I observed her working. “I give them bread, dates, and many other things. I am a bird queen.” Saadiya built her two homes with palm trees, one for the warmer months and one for the winter. She collects seashells, and dislikes anything that taints the beauty of her surroundings.

  Detwah Lagoon, Socotra, Yemen; May 30, 2014. Saadiya Eissa Soliman Abdullah has an early dinner with her children after a day of clearing land on the hill above her home. PHOTO BY AMIRA AL-SHARIF.

  “I have a fighting spirit, which is why I have encountered many obstacles and hardships in my life,” Saadiya told me. “Whatever happens, I am not leaving my land. The land belongs to those who were born and live on it. I fear nobody.” Facing adversity from women and men alike, Saadiya called herself “strong and independent.”

  Saadiya breaks every possible stereotype about Yemeni women. She is dominant, cunning, and watchful. She takes control of her fate and her surroundings with a vigor for survival. Saadiya is also ambitious—she plans to build a restaurant to serve tourists. I do not feel sorry for Saadiya because she endures hardships. Instead, I admire and honor her for taking her own path despite those hardships, and for staying wise and hospitable even when all those around her seek to bring her down.

  At the time of our interview, Saadiya had just received official papers from a local court declaring that she had the right to the land.

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  In March 2015, a mere nine months after I’d photographed Saadiya, the conflict on the mainland between the Houthis and the Yemeni military escalated into a full-scale civil war. Soon afterward, Saudi Arabia, along with an alliance of more than ten countries, declared a military intervention in Yemen. The kingdom’s goal was to halt the progress of the Houthis, who allegedly receive military support from Saudi Arabia’s regional enemy, Iran.

  Since that godforsaken month, more than ten thousand Yemenis have been killed, and millions have been pushed toward famine. Historical monuments in the old city of Sana’a have been destroyed. Weddings, refugee camps, hospitals, residential areas, mosques, schools, food-storage warehouses, and other essential civilian infrastructure have been targeted. Today, Yemenis have limited or no access to clean water, electricity, health care, or security.

  Of course, this war has affected me both personally and professionally. My sisters’ neighborhood was among those bombed, and although they were fortunately able to escape with their families, all of their neighbors perished in the bombing; they witnessed this loss of life with their own eyes. They now live in nearby villages, still fearful. Their trauma has seeped through to the rest of the family, touching us almost as if we were there with them that night. I sometimes even have nightmares about my family’s starving cats, who have also suffered tremendously during the war—occasionally, they would roam the streets to search for food, and end up eating garbage before heading home again. (One of the cats in particular, Asel, was
a source of great peace for me during the bombings. My nightmare turned to reality when she left home with a broken leg and didn’t return; we feared for her life while she was away for a year. She recently somehow managed to make her way back to my sisters. Even animals have the strong will to stay alive.)

  But despite death, famine, and misery, life continues in Yemen. This bittersweet reality of maimed and starved bodies coexisting with the most routine aspects of daily life has defined my approach to imagery. Western photographers tend to be drawn to the carnage, but I have continued to seek out the other part of Yemen that is full of life, love, and hope.

  In part, this is because photographing scenes of war would be tremendously difficult, if not impossible, for me as a woman. War has exacerbated the soul-crushing limitations on our movements. Night or day, Saudi Arabia’s bombardments of Sana’a make it dangerous to walk on what is left of the streets. Limited access between and in cities, particularly Aden and Sana’a, means that it’s virtually impossible for me to follow people I’m photographing. Internet access is sporadic. Before taking any pictures, I have to obtain permission from the Houthis in the north of the country and from security authorities, including the Saudi coalition, in the south. Even leaving the country for conferences or educational trips poses a challenge—the cost of travel is extremely high, and the visa application process cumbersome.

  I did, at first, take photographs of the destruction Saudi bombs had unleashed on Yemeni people, albeit from a distance and sometimes weeks or months after the actual bombings. I went to the Al-Fulaihi area in the old city of Sana’a in December 2016, fourteen months after it had been destroyed by Saudi air strikes. I visited a garden that was part of a twenty-five-hundred-year-old protected UNESCO World Heritage site; I understood this strike in particular to have been an attempt to erase Yemeni history.

  I was drawn to the nearby home of a vegetable seller who lived with his wife and eight children, curious as to how they’d got on in the aftermath of the bombing. There, I spotted colorful laundry hung on tree branches just outside the ramshackle home. You can destroy our homes, but the Yemenis will still do laundry, I thought.

  Sana’a, Yemen; December 20, 2016. The home of a vegetable seller, his wife, and their eight children fourteen months after the Saudi-led coalition bombarded the Al-Fulaihi area of the UNESCO World Heritage site in the old city of Sana’a. PHOTO BY AMIRA AL-SHARIF.

  I want to show the side of war that very few people see: the laundry hung up on tree branches to dry; the children playing at the beach; the women preparing food for their families; the little sisters who look after one another when their mother is busy and their father is away fighting. I also want to show what life is like in remote villages and islands that are safe from the bombs but not from poverty. There is a special kind of resilience and beauty in those tucked-away spots of life. I want you all to see the true beauty of my suffering country. With my camera, I strive to empower, not victimize, the people in my images.

  Al-Sheikh Othman, Aden, south of Yemen; February 2, 2017. A girl takes care of her younger sister while their mother prepares to host a party marking the birth of her third child. Children are among the most vulnerable groups affected by the Yemeni war. One Yemeni child dies every ten minutes, the latest UN data show. PHOTO BY AMIRA AL-SHARIF.

  In February 2017, I met a mother who had recently had her third child. She had told me that she was about to host a party; it is Yemeni tradition to celebrate the good health of a newborn forty days after his or her birth. I was moved by the idea of a party. To me, it marked a celebration not only of the newborn but also of youth and the future.

  While the mother prepared the food for her guests, I spent some time with her two playful daughters. One of them had henna tattooed onto her arms and was wearing a glimmering pastel-yellow dress. Her innocence struck me, and I took a photo of her.

  As I was taking the photo, I thought of the photographs of the male Yemeni fighters and of the children dying of malnutrition that had started to make it into mainstream press coverage. The image that I captured of the baby girls showed the other side of that tragic story. I wish I could flood the internet with these types of images.

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  A month after the party, I decided to travel to Al-Qurai’e, a village in the directorate of Al-Boriqah controlled by the Saudi coalition forces, to document the effect pollution was having on the roughly eighty Yemeni families who lived there. The town suffers from an illiteracy rate of more than 98 percent, and its people live well below the poverty line. As a direct consequence of the civil war, Al-Qurai’e has effectively become a dump. Basic services including water, health, education, and electricity are unavailable, and there’s virtually no infrastructure to speak of. Al-Qurai’e is today an environmental hazard zone in which the burning of industrial waste has created toxic gases, putting local children at risk.

  A trusted friend traveled with me to help me with statistics and data collection; we had to pretend that he was my father, even though he was only eleven years older than me. We couldn’t move around freely in the area as it was guarded by United Arab Emirates forces and Saudi-backed mercenaries. The local “guide” who accompanied us during our reporting trip directed our movements, allowing us to film only what he saw fit. We had been informed by the local leader that the area surrounding the garbage dump in the village, known as the Ostrich Well, was under strict surveillance by the coalition forces, who were on the lookout for al-Qaeda militants; nearby movements were allegedly monitored via sensor devices. As we made our way to the dump, we were acutely aware that we were being watched. Despite the fact that we had a permit, the local leader told us to leave. Before we left Al-Qurai’e, I took photos of the harm it was wreaking on the people in the village.

  As we made our way back home, already feeling ill due to our exposure to the pollution, my colleague and I were harassed by members of the Security Belt militia in Aden. The director demanded to see the photographs I’d taken. We later learned through media reports that the coalition forces had been running prisons in the area. They were so preoccupied with the idea of my stumbling upon and photographing those secret prisons that they had completely overlooked the photos I’d taken showing the effects of burning industrial waste near people’s homes.

  Al-Boriqah, south of Yemen; March 9, 2017. In the small community of Al-Qurai’e, at the edge of Aden, some 450 inhabitants live below the poverty line. PHOTO BY AMIRA AL-SHARIF.

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  In January 2018, three of my male colleagues and I decided to visit the Arabian jasmine farms of Bayt Al-Faqih in the province of Hodeidah. The weather was pleasant and we rolled our windows down to enjoy the mild breeze. This was the first time I’d driven my car outside of Sana’a. I’d wanted to take images of the jasmine farms: a photo essay of blooming white flowers during the darkness of war. I also had plans to move to Hodeidah to start a year-long project photographing women.

  I did not realize at the time how risky it was to be traveling without a mahram (a close male relative); perhaps I hadn’t thought the trip through to the extent that I should have. The twisty roads of the mountains flattened out into a highway dotted with checkpoints. An officer at the first one we stopped at in Bajel looked at us suspiciously and asked me to park the car. We were then questioned by six separate police officers for almost three hours.

  They asked for our identification papers and confiscated our cell phones as they questioned us. I had two phones with me, and I gave the officers only one. When the officer asked me to unlock it, I did so without flinching: I had deleted all of its data the day before, as I sometimes do when preparing for my reporting trips. “You’re going to pay for deleting the messages,” the officer said, realizing that I’d outsmarted him.

  My colleagues and I had not committed a crime, but we were treate
d as if we were criminals, simply because we were unrelated and traveling together. I explained to the officers that I needed them with me to help me navigate the mountains—it was too risky for me to do so on my own—and they were like family. We had departed from my family home in Sana’a, I added, so my parents knew who I was with and had no problem with my travel plans.

  My explanations went unheard. Two hours later, I was asked to sign a document (by stamping it with my finger) that stipulated that my colleagues and I were engaged in an illegal, shameful act when we were found. I refused, saying that being found in bed with a lover might be considered shameful, but driving through a checkpoint with three loyal colleagues was not. The officer screamed at me and said he’d take me to a place “where I’d be forced to stamp the document.” My colleagues also refused, but they were beaten until they gave in. We were taken to a nearby “investigative office” where I was questioned by no fewer than eight officers and instructed to stamp documents I wasn’t allowed to read. I was too overwhelmed to resist. I was then taken to a women’s prison.

  When I arrived at the facility, all I could do was think about how a few years prior, I’d photographed several women’s prisons in Yemen for a project I’d worked on with an organization in London. I never thought I would be a prisoner in one of those jail cells. But the fact that I had been on that particular assignment at those prisons might have saved me: as soon as I entered the facility, I came across a female police officer who recognized me. A few hours later, thanks to her intervention, I was released from the prison and sent back to the investigations department.