Since 2015, Yemen has been in an outright Civil war after Houthis, which are Shiite rebels, hosted an uprising against the Sunni government. Houthis are backed by Iran mainly and have been classified as a terrorist organization in the past with strong opposition to America, Israel, and Saudi Arabia. We officially stopped engaging in conflict with Yemen in 2021 at the beginning of the Biden administration, but recently, we’ve been involved again. Houthis have launched multiple attacks on US and UK ships after the killing of 10 Houthi members. Yemen’s conflict with other countries isn’t even Yemen’s main issue going on right now as most civilians are stricken with poverty, famine, lack of water, and displacement.
Yemen was improving slowly, with a peak in human development in 2012, showing the highest life expectancy, years of schooling, and gross national income per capita. Since then, there has been a significant decrease in all of those, with human development being the worst since the early 2000s, with a rank of 186 out of 193 being placed below other poor countries like Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Even at its peak, Yemen was nowhere close to being a stable and prosperous country. The economy is not doing well at all, making it hard for civilians to obtain regularly needed resources like food, with one of the causes being the disruption in the supply chain due to the Russian-Ukrainian war. 21.6 million people need humanitarian assistance, 17.3 million deal with food insecurity, and 6 million are on the brink of famine.
Disease is amongst this crisis too and has 22,000 cases of measles in 2022 alone and an even more surprising rise in cases of Polio causing children to go paralyzed. Measles and Polio are easily preventable via the use of vaccines, but most people there do not have access to vaccines. House-to-house campaigns have been implemented where organizations supply vaccines but there are a lot of people who are against the idea of vaccines in the country and outright refuse the vaccines being given out due to misinformation being spread. In these situations, children are typically affected in worse ways than adults because these diseases are more common in children. However, these aren’t the only horrid situations children are put into because of the war.
Houthis are recruiting children to their conflicts and have been since 2009 with children as young as 13, which is a war crime according to the Geneva Convention. Anybody under the age of 15 serving in a war is a war crime. Recently, there has been a rise in child recruitment, and many are convinced they are going to be helping out with the issue in Palestine but have instead been sent to different places. A leader of a human rights nongovernmental organization said: “The Houthis make children believe that they will fight to liberate Palestine, but they end up sending them to [the front lines in] Marib and Taizz. Indeed, the Houthis’ Gaza in Marib”. These children are convinced that what they are doing is going to help people, but sadly, they are put into conflicts that are going to lead to more destruction to their own home country and possibly even be killed in the process. Even two action plans were signed by the Houthis with the UN in 2014 and 2022 that stated they would release their child troops. This has seemingly been ignored, though, as children are still being dragged into a situation that they had no part in creating and are then forced to endure it.
A child soldier of the Houthis
As of yesterday, April 21, 2024, there has been a glimpse of hope for restoring this nation as a five-year assistance agreement was made between the United States and Yemen that will focus on stabilizing Yemen. There will be an economic growth program that will work towards improving their economy and helping with international trade. Healthcare will become more readily available, supplying reproductive and child health assistance, nutrition for pregnant women and children, proper sanitation, and water. Programs will even be implemented to help with education, education for disabled children, and unity within communities. This seems to be a massive step towards a better future in Yemen, but as of now, the conditions there are still poor, and it is not known when this will change, but at least now there is hope.
