"Yemen: Women are more knowledgeable about digital security than men and are more targeted"

The decision taken by Yemeni digital rights activist Yousra Al-Asri to share tips to enhance digital security with her friends was enough to make her a victim of numerous hacking attempts, while those responsible remained unknown.

In an interview with “SMEX”, Al-Asri says that an attacker managed to access her colleague’s phone and created groups to which he included all the numbers of her friends, and blackmailed a number of them over a significant period of time before he escaped without a legal prosecution...

The forms of digital violence targeting Yemeni women vary between electronic blackmail, theft of personal data, and online harassment, according to the words of human rights activist Bushra Al-Saadi... These attacks expand to threatening to publish private photos or personal data, in order to intimidate them and discourage them from continuing their online activity, according to the Yemeni activist.

According to Al-Asri, cyberattacks are becoming more frequent and more dangerous against girls who express their political opinions or are active in the field of human rights.

In a survey published by “Manassaty 30”, in which 1,717 people participated, it was found that 41% of the participants had not heard of the term digital security before, and that males were “more ignorant of digital security than women.” Moreover, it was found that the main causes of digital illiteracy among women are mainly due to their deprivation of traditional education by 55%, and societal restrictions by 54%.

According to the findings of the questionnaire, digital illiteracy increases girls' chances of extortion, especially in light of the pressure that males often exert on women in their families, which pushes them to cover up what they are exposed to...

There are no laws in the Yemeni legislation that protect the victim from electronic blackmail,” according to lawyer Arwa Al-Shamiri, the legal support officer in the “Yemeni Women's Union", noting that the absence of a legal deterrent has led to high rates of cybercrime in the country.

Republican Decree Law No. (12) of 1994 regarding crimes and penalties, which is not effectively applied in the country due to the dominance of tribal customs, punishes with imprisonment “for a period not exceeding five years or with a fine ...[the crime of blackmail]...

However, this article “loses its effectiveness when employed in the context of cybercrimes,” according to Al-Shamiri, because the use of the word “bad intent” in the legislation paved the way for blackmailers to prove their good intentions and deny their connection to any extortion operations...

[Unofficial Arabic to English translation provided by the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre. The original is available in Arabic here.]