By Fatima Rashad

Aden — Over a legal career spanning more than a decade, Judge Ishraq Al-Maqtari has combined fieldwork, judicial reform, and advocacy for victims, leaving an indelible mark on Yemen’s justice system.

In a country exhausted by war and burdened by tradition, Judge Al-Maqtari advances steadily through the judiciary, carrying the banner of women’s rights in a social and legal system that continues to marginalize and diminish women’s roles.

A graduate of Sana’a University’s Faculty of Law, with a Master’s degree from Assiut University, Al-Maqtari has broken barriers, documented violations, and empowered women legally — proving that justice cannot exist without women’s voices and recognition of their dignity. She is currently pursuing a PhD on women in the context of armed conflicts, affirming that justice remains incomplete without fairness for women.

A Legal Career Rooted in Commitment

Her journey began early with the Yemeni Bar Association, before leading the legal department at the Yemeni Women’s Union, and later managing the Legal Protection and Advocacy Program at Oxfam between 2005 and 2015. She was not just an employee but a voice for abused and imprisoned women, providing legal aid in personal status cases and defending their rights inside prisons. Her work extended to ten prisons across various Yemeni governorates.

According to her statistics, she contributed to assisting over 3,000 female prisoners and 4,000 women in cases of inheritance, alimony, and child custody, in addition to training thousands of security and investigative personnel.

Double Challenges in a Male-Dominated Environment

Ten years of intense work made her both a witness to and advocate for women’s issues across the country. Beyond legal aid, she sought judicial reform, trained lawyers and police officers on combating gender-based violence, and established community support committees for women’s causes.

“We worked on submitting proposals to the Parliament,” she recalls. “During that period, I also served as a consultant and trained everyone working in the field of combating violence against women.”

Yet, the path was far from easy. Like many women in the legal field, she faced multiple challenges — balancing family responsibilities with professional duties, and interacting daily with both offenders and victims.

She spoke about the difficulty of proving competence in a system that lacks faith in human rights, and about the social constraints that confine female judges — from restrictions on travel to rumors and threats. “The greatest challenge,” she says, “is proving myself as a woman in a profession where many still believe we don’t belong.”

Breaking Stereotypes

Despite Yemen’s prevalent perception of the judiciary as a male domain, women have managed to assert their presence and present successful models, helping to shift some societal views. Still, some security leaders show reluctance when dealing with female judges, Al-Maqtari explains, despite women’s higher standards of integrity and lower involvement in corruption.

She emphasizes that “despite the enormous challenges female judges face, they must exert double the effort. The barriers to women in the judiciary still exist and are deepening, despite ongoing attempts by pioneering female judges to dismantle them and shift societal perceptions. What makes it worse is the continued use of so-called ‘religious codification’ — a distorted application of religion that serves to justify women’s exclusion from leadership and decision-making, reinforcing discrimination instead of eliminating it.”

She adds that traditional beliefs still confine women’s roles to fields like education, nursing, or administration, while seeing judgeships, prosecution, and law as exclusively male domains — as though such professions were “unfitting” for women. This mindset reflects the remnants of a deeply entrenched discriminatory system that keeps female judges in constant struggle against a society that refuses to recognize their competence or allow them to assume leadership roles.

According to Al-Maqtari, empowering women in the judiciary requires both political will from decision-makers and societal awareness, alongside women’s readiness to pursue the profession responsibly. Many women have already succeeded in asserting their presence and delivering exceptional professional performance, gradually changing the patriarchal outlook — though full acceptance remains distant.

Tackling Sensitive Human Rights Cases

As a member of the National Commission to Investigate Alleged Violations to Human Rights, Al-Maqtari works on cases of arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, and torture — without discrimination among regions. She believes that transitional justice can only be achieved by ensuring fairness for victims and guaranteeing no impunity for perpetrators.

“We work across all governorates without exception,” she affirms, “because our goal is fairness, restoring dignity, and ensuring that justice prevails.”

Despite her notable impact on Yemen’s judiciary, Al-Maqtari acknowledges that many women’s cases never reach the courts, due to the social discrimination that undermines their rights. Still, she persists, placing women’s issues at the forefront of her mission, convinced that change begins with recognition and continues through persistence and determination.

Through this perseverance, Judge Ishraq Al-Maqtari continues to carve her path through challenges, leaving an enduring mark on Yemen’s judicial record — driven by her unwavering belief that women deserve justice, and that their voices must be heard, no matter how many obstacles stand in the way.