International campaign to stop Houthi crimes against children – Yemen
The Yemeni government and the UN office in Yemen yesterday launched the International Campaign to Prevent the Recruitment of Children.
Yemen’s Ministry of Legal Affairs said: “The campaign from Aden’s temporary capital aims to prevent the recruitment of children”, the official Yemeni news agency reported.
The ministry called for an end to Houthi violations of children’s rights in Yemen and for the closure of all recruitment centers and sending children to the front lines.
The statement affirmed the government’s commitment to the Yemeni constitution and law, as well as international agreements that have been ratified to end the phenomenon of child recruitment.
It called on “all pivotal military, social, political, official and popular media activities in all provinces to actively participate to show the danger of this phenomenon to future generations”.
The place for children in this age group is educational institutions, and arming them with knowledge and knowledge is the true gateway to the future, ensuring a generation without violence as a result of wars and conflicts.
The campaign comes in response to an international campaign launched by the Office of the Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Armed Conflict and Children, which launched a collective effort to all countries around the world under the slogan ”Action for the Protection of Children”, the statement said.
The campaign is in implementation of the plan signed by the Yemeni government and the United Nations in 2014, as well as the road map signed in 2018, and the implementation of the six action points adopted by the Joint Technical Committee for the Prevention of Child Recruitment in July 2021.
Earlier this month, the UN urged the Houthi militia to expel children from its ranks, setting a six-month deadline for the militia to leave the area.
The report of the United Nations Panel of Experts, issued last January, revealed that 2,000 children recruited by the Houthi militia were killed in less than two years.
The report to the Security Council said: “The Houthis are still setting up camps and holding courses to encourage young people and children to fight”.
The Houthi militia committed grave crimes against children, including rape during sectarian sessions.
Summer camps and cultural courses targeting adult children are part of the Houthi strategy to gain support for their ideology and encourage people to join the fight.
Earlier, a Yemeni rights coalition revealed that Iranian-backed Houthi militias had recruited 12,054 children in a number of governorates from 2014 to 2022.
