The Arab Spring gave Yemen’s women a public voice and a visible face. But the revolution has faded without changing anything for millions who are married too young and shut away in mud huts for the rest of their lives.

A woman approached me as I was rushing toward the D.C. Metro after giving a talk on rape in Syria last month. She asked in a low voice if she could share some information. She had DVDs, she said. On them were testimonies of Syrian women who'd been raped; in particular, a mother, a daughter and a sister all in one family.

The Arab Spring has failed to deliver greater political power to women in the region or to offer them better protection from sexual harassment, but may yet yield female-friendly reform, a conference on women’s rights heard on Tuesday.

Transitions taking place in the region are igniting debate on the need for Arab women to seize the opportunity to push for their rights and ensure their engagement in the decision-making process, researchers said on Monday. In light of fears that the Arab Spring is “leaving women out in the cold and failing to make them reap its gains”, platforms to debate gender equality are more important than ever, they added in a seminar titled “Women Making Change”.

Fifty-nine newly appointed judges, including 31 women, will receive training on the profession's code of ethics, human rights and approaches for handling gender-sensitive cases under a new project implemented by the Arab Women's Legal Network (AWLN).

Among the dozens of Facebook groups spawned by the Syrian uprising, a page supporting women's rights has suddenly received a wave of attention, because of an image posted there by one of its followers. The picture was of 21-year-old Dana Bakdounis, without the veil she had grown up wearing - and it polarised opinion.