Hanan is like many other women who live in Al Qardi village in Al Dhale governorate of Yemen. She suffers from a lack of access to water. Recalling her childhood she says: “I used to queue at the same water source almost every day to fetch enough water for the family. I dropped out of school when I was 13 years old due to the physical and time-consuming challenges of fetching water and doing other household chores. Sometimes we used to wake up early and queue to fill our jerry cans and bottles before it got crowded. During holidays and dry periods it could take us three days to fill them.”
Unfortunately, women and girls are still facing the same problem with water and after four years of war the situation is worse. Today over 17.8 million people in Yemen are in need of clean water including 12.6 million who are in acute need. Only 22% of rural areas are connected to partially-functioning public water networks.
In Al Qardi village there is only one well which the entire village of almost 400 households has relied upon as their main source for water for many decades. Unclean water is sometimes available – this is distributed by water tankers in the local market and could be as expensive as 80,000 Yemeni Riyal (around 140 USD), which is unaffordable for most of the community members.
