13 1. Introduction Yemen Country Profile Yemen is an Arab and Islamic country. It is located in the south of the Arabian Peninsula between the latitudes of 12 o and 20 o north and lon­gitudes of 41 o and 54 o east. The Republic of Yemen is 555,000 sq. km in area(excluding Rub Al Khali- The Empty Quarter). Saudi Arabia borders it on the north, with the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Aden on the south, the Sultanate of Oman in the east, and the Red Sea in the west. Sana’a is the capital of The Republic of Yemen. The population of Yemen reached 19.2 million in the year 2002. The population grows annually at an average of 3.8%. The density of population is generally 33 persons per square kilometer. The size of an average Yemeni family is 6 to 7 members. The administrative division of Yemen consists of 19 governorates in addition to the Capital Secre­tariat. Yemen’s emerging democracy is a constitutional republic, where“ The people are the owner and the source of power”(Article 4). The people of Yemen participate in the governing system through referendums and elections, and indirectly through the legislature, the executive, and the judicial power, and through the elected local authorities councils. The political system in the Republic of Yemen rests on political pluralism and a multiparty system. Political participation and rotation in power are conducted through public elections. The President of the Republic is elected through direct competitive elections. It is stipulated that the President of the Republic should ob­tain the absolute majority of the elector’s votes. The seven-year term of a presidency begins with the President’s constitutional oath taking. According to the by laws, which were amended for the last time in 2001, a president might be re-elected only once. Data of the 1994 census reveals that the rate of school attendance be­tween the ages of six and fifteen years is 56%. The rate for males who