Yemen model abducted by Houthis for 'violating Islamic culture’ after posing without hijab

A Yemeni model and actress, who aspired to make a career in fashion, was abducted from Sanaa street by the Iran-backed Houthi militia on Thursday. The 20-year-old Entesar Al-Hammadi had posed for pictures without a hijab and was picked off the street for 'violating Islamic culture’ and dress code. Slamming her as a ‘bad influence’, the Houthis are planning to prosecute her in a kangaroo court for corrupt behaviour and noncompliance to ‘Islamic norms’, as per reports. Earlier, two of her colleagues with a fashion career went missing after they were similarly abducted on February 20 in the rebel-controlled Yemeni capital, Sanaa. Al-Hammadi’s abduction and her prosecution is believed to be a part of a crackdown against the Islamic shariah law violators and liberals in the Houthis controlled part of the country, where women are subjected to an oppressive regime in male-controlled and conservative Islamic governance system. 

An Amnesty International report describes Yemen as ‘one of the worst places in the world to be a woman.’ It said that the women survived in oppressive, deteriorating conditions, stripped of equality. The organization quoted a woman from Ma’arib on condition of anonymity as saying: “I don’t feel like a human being”. The Yemeni woman continued that there were increased gender roles in the region, “I can’t breathe properly like other human beings. We suffer from the forced niqab [hijaab and purdah system], child marriage, divorce shame, domestic violence and honour killings.” Al-Hammadi had, similarly, drawn excessive criticism from religious conservatives for posing without a hijab, and pursuing a career in modelling. The part-time actress was on her way to shoot for a TV drama series when she was kidnapped for prosecution for dissidents and alleged ‘immoral acts. 

Wanted to enroll in college

The Yemini model, born to a Yemeni father and an Ethiopian mother, despite being born in a conservative society pursued her ambition passionately. According to Al-Arabiya, at a young age, Al Hammadi wore her mother’s clothes imitated famous models whom she watched keenly on TV, learning their styles. Her parents told her that her dream of “becoming a model was pie in the sky. I said that it was my dream and I would keep pursuing it,” she told a TV interview in Arabic last year. The young woman planned to enroll at a college next year. Her stunning photographs clicked by a professional photographer came to the notice of conservatives after they circulated on social media.