Anti-violence 16-day campaign overlooks lax security that leaves women at risk from militias and police unable to protect them.
One morning, Enas Abdel Wanis was about to leave home to go to work at the National Council for Civil Liberties and Human Rights (NCCHR) in Benghazi, in Libya, when she discovered her car had been burnt. Her crime had been to advocate for better security for civilians and the disarmament of militias that had been terrorising her city. Since then, Wanis has had to comply with the security restrictions set by her family: to do her job (document and monitor human rights violations), she now has to be chaperoned by her father on field visits.
It is the same story in Yemen, where Morooj Alwazir, co-founder of SupportYemen, says: “It is a struggle to even be part of society, it is a struggle to speak your mind, to feel safe in your own neighbourhood, your only safe space is your bedroom.”
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