SANAA, Yemen — As Yemen's minister of human rights, Hooria Mashhour knows she has her work cut out for her.

International organizations continue to raise concerns about human rights violations in the country, ranging from revolutionaries being detained to schools being occupied by armed groups. Moreover, Mashhour says the country is "collapsing" on security, economic, social and political fronts, and former President Ali Abdullah Saleh and his supporters are stunting the country's transition from his 33-year rule. And yet, Mashhour says, there's no alternative but to be optimistic. In her mind, the way forward calls for innovation — finding new methods to tackle terrorism and other towering problems. In place of drone strikes, which she says leave innocent people dead, other strategies to target extremists should be explored.

A widowed mother of four, Mashhour served for years on the government's Women National Committee of Yemen and resigned in early 2011 from her post in a show of solidarity with the revolution. She's a robust woman in a small build now overseeing more than 100 employees at Yemen's Ministry of Human Rights. Since her December appointment, Mashhour has created new ministerial units on volunteering, social responsibility, transparency, anti-corruption and transitional justice. She also maintains a prolific Twitter feed on her own.

Dressed in a pink head scarf and charcoal blazer, Mashhour said in her office recently that Yemenis rose up last year because they had been denied their rights. Among her priorities has been defining a national strategy for human rights and creating an independent human rights institution, which she hopes will be in place by the end of next year. But much depends on the parliament, which under the so-called Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) initiative signed last year required that half the seats went to opposition parties and the rest be made up of Almotamar, Saleh's party.