A/HRC/42/CRP.1 outside of male relatives is criminalized; abortion is criminalized; however, female genital mutilation is not criminalized.952 620. These provisions are underpinned by patriarchal customs and traditions. Customary law is based on a caste-like system that affords men expansive privileges and rights of guardianship over women, non-Yemenis, minority groups, and other ‘vulnerable’ people.953 Men’s traditional roles within this system come with an expectation to act violently and fight to fulfil their role as guardians, particularly higher-caste men from tribal backgrounds. Women’s traditional roles are largely domestic, reproductive, and based within the confines of the household. This system embeds inequality and discrimination along gender, tribal, religious, class, racial and caste statuses, rendering women and girls of African origin, “Muhamasheen”, and those in rural areas most marginalized, disempowered, and vulnerable to gender-based violence.954 This is present to differing extents throughout Yemen, but most apparent in rural and northern areas, now largely under the control of the de facto authorities, which are traditionally more conservative than southern areas. 955 621. Guardianship rights over women and girls are exchanged between males through marriage. Dowry is paid from the groom to the bride’s father, after which the bride passes from her father’s to her husband’s guardianship. Child marriage is endemic in Yemen, marriage is legal at any age and sexual intercourse is legally prohibited only until puberty.956 Marrying girls at a young age in Yemen provides the bride’s family with a source of income, is considered by some families as a form of protection, and lifts the burden of providing for them, particularly in impoverished families or where girls have not had access to education. The relative age and power imbalance between bride and groom increases the risk of domestic violence and, coupled with the legality of intercourse with girls who have merely ‘reached puberty’, embeds sexual abuse of children as a practice.957 622. Gender-based violence by those outside the family against women and children is linked to the guardianship system. Male guardians’ ‘honour’, self-esteem and emotional security, is put at risk by such violence when committed by men outside the family. This attracts stigma, and the consequential risk to their status means that these men heavily regulate women and girls, and their sexuality.958 In a context of endemic inequality and disempowerment women and girls become psychosocially dependent on men, and many women internalise this stigma and fear of shame, rendering them further at risk, either from the male ‘guardians’ in a position of power over them, or when they lose their support. These factors perpetuate cycles of stigmatisation, negative gender norms, vulnerability and gender-based violence. Further they enable Yemeni men in positions of power to use gender and sexuality to control women and girls; and render women and girls, and masculinity and male sexuality, as proxy-targets to be attacked by the parties to the conflict. 623. Yemen is diverse, and over time its customs, traditions and laws have been constructed and applied in different ways in different communities, regions and families. 952 Ibid, UNDP 2018. Ibid, UNDP 2018, Hussein 2011. Marta Colburn, Gender and Development in Yemen, Oxfam and Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, 2002. 954 Confidential Sources on File. Ibid, Colburn 2002. Saferworld, “Women Nowadays do Anything” 2017; ILO, Labour Market and Demographic Trends in Yemen, 2014. CARE “Rapid Gender Analysis of Yemen”, 2015. Oxfam-CARE-GenCap “Gender and Conflict Analysis in Yemen”, 2016; Also see the following on gender and Muhamasheen, Somalian and Ethiopian communities in Yemen Witness. GBV Witness, “Taking on Discrimination and Violence against Women in Yemen, Breaking the Silence Documentary” 2010, available at: https://gbv.witness.org/taking-discriminationviolence-women-yemen/ . Marina de Regt, “Refugee, woman and domestic worker: Somali women dealing with dependencies in Yemen”, African and Black Diaspora: An International Journal, 2010. Marina de Regt, “Ways to Come, Ways to Leave: Gender Mobility and (Il) legality Among Ethiopian Domestic Workers in Yemen”, Gender and Society 24(2):237-260, 2010. 955 Confidential Sources on File. Colburn 2002. CARE “Yemen Program Approach Situation Analysis”, 2014. 956 UNDP 2018. Hussein 2011. Colburn 2002. 957 For more details on the Group’s findings see the Child Protection Chapter. 958 Fatima Mernisi, Beyond the Veil: Male-Female Dynamics in Muslim Society, Saqi Books, 2011, Chapter 2. Colburn 2002. 953 149