On a summer day in 2022, Warda Seif walked the streets of the Yemeni city of Aden under a scorching sun for two hours, looking for a mobile phone repair shop to fix a fault with his device. She knew the problem could be fixed within an hour, but when the technicians asked her to share her password and leave the phone on the premises for a day or two, she refused and went to the next store.
Seif's refusal may seem peculiar, but the risks he fears are serious: Yemen is a conservative country, with one of the worst results on the Gender Inequality Index (in 2021, it ranked 155th out of a total of 156 countries). . Deeply ingrained patriarchal norms and gender roles make women the repositories of their families' honour, making them easy targets for extortion and blackmail. Mobile phones store much of that honor, in the form of confidential information and personal images, even when these are not explicit or revealing.
Women who fall victim to
sextortion
do everything possible to avoid causing a scandal, many comply with what their extortioners ask of them, giving them money or accepting sexual favors, and those who end up being discovered by their families face the imminent risk of violence. domestic, death or suicide.
“Widespread computer illiteracy among women and their dependence on strangers to set up their emails or fix their devices makes them vulnerable to extortionists,” says activist Mokhtar Abdel al-Moez, founder of Sanad, a nonprofit organization with nearly 400 volunteer digital experts offering support to victims of cybercrime since March 2020.
One of the mobiles that Amal al-Suroori fixes, who has converted part of her house in Aden into a small workshop.
In the end, Seif gave up, joining the ranks of so many women who go months, even years, without a mobile phone because they are unable to fix the technical problems that any device can suffer, and they cannot afford to buy new ones.
Rana Fadl, a 27-year-old also from Aden, was working at an international aid organization in 2021 when her phone broke. Unable to fix it herself or find someone reliable enough for the task, and since she couldn't afford to buy another phone, she couldn't perform her job properly and she ended up leaving him. “My brother insisted that he not leave my phone in the hands of a stranger,” she explains.
“We receive between 15 and 20 cases of cybercrime complaints every day. Some women face domestic violence, divorce or even commit suicide for fear of scandal
Mokhtar Abdel al-Moez, founder of the activist organization Sanad
The latest cases of women victims of extortion were too recent to ignore. At the end of 2020, a brutal murder put the issue on the table. Abdullah al-Aghbary, a young man from the southwestern city of Taiz, was beaten to death weeks after being hired at a mobile phone repair shop. Al-Aghbary had allegedly begun gathering evidence that the establishment's male technicians used the contents of female customers' phones to blackmail them. The crime coincided with a series of testimonies in the local press from women who were victims of
sextortion
technicians .
“We receive between 15 and 20 cases of cybercrime reports every day,” says Al-Moez. “Some women end up being dragged into prostitution in the hope that their compliance will prevent the blackmailer from making their personal images public. Others end up with mental and emotional scars, or face domestic violence, divorce or even commit suicide for fear of scandal,” he emphasizes.
Tahani al-Jaafari's repair workshop, in his house. COURTED BY Tahani Al-Jaafari
A technological maverick
In 2020, in the midst of a global pandemic and the uproar surrounding the murder of Al-Aghbary, Anisa al-Salami decided to end the dependence of Yemeni women on male mobile phone technicians. This 29-year-old girl, who lives in Taiz, had been without a phone for four years after hers broke down. “She was there, and I looked at him, frustrated that I couldn't do anything. Four years. Until I decided to fix it myself,” she says.
To achieve this, she did something very frowned upon: she joined the field of computing and mobile phone repair, dominated by men, studying at the Technical Institute of Computer Programming and Maintenance (TICPM) and opening a store to offer her services to women. . “I was the subject of criticism and ridicule from family and strangers, but I decided once and for all that no woman should be forced to live without a phone because there is no technical woman she can trust to repair her device,” she explains. Al-Salami.
Anissa al-Salami's mobile repair shop in the southwestern Yemeni city of Taiz, in 2020. COURTED BY Anissa al-Salami
In Yemen, where years of unrest and instability have added to inequality and discrimination, the disparity between men and women in economic participation and opportunity is one of the largest in the world; In 2021, only 28.2% of the gender gap had been overcome. “I have been defamed by male technicians who accused me of working for extortionists, and now they refuse to sell me spare parts that they monopolize, forcing me to buy what my business needs in Sana'a, at a great economic cost due to the difference in rates between the two cities,” explains Al-Salami, referring to the obstacles and political divisions that split his country into two warring administrations.
Cell phones are a necessity, and buying a new one every time yours breaks is ridiculous. Trust in male coaches no longer exists. I learned this work in my own interest and that of others
Tahani al-Jaafari, mobile phone repairer
But due to the enormous need, Al-Salami's store on one of the commercial streets of Taiz, Yemen's third largest city, has so many customers that she has had to hire other women whom she trains as technicians to make the help. “There are days when I receive 10 or more customers in the store, mostly women. They come from places near and far. Some men also come to me because they are worried about the images of women in their family on their phones. I serve them all, in addition to guiding them on online privacy protection, information security, and helping illiterate women set up their phones and teaching them the basics,” she explains.
An incredible step
For cybersecurity trainer Zainab al-Qadi, the emergence of Yemeni women in this sector is “an incredible step” that will help reduce cases of extortion of women. “This does not mean that the sexual extortion of women has stopped or that the problem is solved, but the fact that they become technicians and repairers of their own devices will at least eliminate that risk for them,” she declares.
Attentive to Al-Salami's success, other women have been encouraged to follow in her footsteps. Tahani al-Jaafari set up a small workshop in a corner of her house in Taiz to repair and fix the phones of women who need her knowledge, after having studied at the TICPM, like Al-Salami did. “It's a small effort on my part, but it's what I can do to help other women and protect them from what ended the lives of many of them, metaphorically and literally,” says the 27-year-old.
Amal al-Suroori also took a programming course and, in May 2023, converted a small part of her house in Aden into a mobile phone repair workshop to welcome female clients. “Mobile phones are a necessity, and buying a new one every time yours breaks is ridiculous. And trust in male coaches no longer exists. So I learned this job in my own interest and that of others,” he explains. Azhar al-Jaafari, a 32-year-old housewife, picks up her phone after being repaired by Al-Suroori. “A great weight has been lifted from our shoulders as women. I no longer get scared every time my phone breaks,” she says.
This article was published in collaboration with Egab, a platform that works with journalists from the Middle East and Africa.
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