Geneva - Beth: A report by the Euro-Mediterranean Observatory for Human Rights and the “SAM” organization for rights and freedoms revealed that the Houthi group has forcibly recruited about 10,300 children in Yemen since 2014, warning of dangerous consequences in the event of the continued international failure to address this phenomenon.

The report (Beth received a copy of it), which was launched by the two organizations on the International Day Against Child Recruitment, which falls on February 12 of each year, stated that the Houthi group uses complex patterns to forcibly recruit children and put them in hostilities in the various areas it controls in Yemen. Hundreds of them were killed and injured, as the report documented the names of 111 children who were killed during the battles between July and August 2020 only.

The report, entitled “Militarization of Childhood,” highlighted the Houthi group’s use of schools and educational facilities to attract children to forced recruitment, through an education system that incites violence, in addition to teaching students the group’s ideological doctrine through special lectures inside educational facilities to fill them with extremist ideas and encourage them to join To fight in support of the group's military actions.

The report indicated that in the past three years (2018, 2019, 2020) the Houthi group began an open and compulsory campaign to recruit children, as it opened 52 training camps for thousands of teenagers and children, and the compulsory recruitment campaigns spread in the regions of Saada, Sanaa, Al Mahwit, Hodeidah, Tihama, Hajjah and Dhamar, targeting children from 10 years old.

The report outlines the methods and methods used by the Houthi group in recruiting children, as it has sometimes included children in ideological programs - revolving around the group’s ideology and ideology - then they are sent to a training camp to attend a one-month military course, after which they are thrown onto the battlefronts, where they are entrusted. They can carry out the tasks of direct engagement, laying mines and guarding military points.

According to the documentation of the two organizations, the Houthi group resorts to threatening Yemeni families in the villages and areas it controls in order to recruit their children (10-17 years old), in addition to recruiting children in camps for the displaced and orphanages. In some cases, the group has recruited children from poor families in exchange for monetary rewards ($ 150 per month).

The report included testimonies collected by the field research teams of the two organizations, of children recruited by the Houthi group, as the 14-year-old boy who was recruited by the Houthi group in the Nehm front, east of the capital, Sana'a, said: “I have been assigned the tasks of packing ammunition and transporting them with foodstuffs. The process was arduous and fatal, especially in times of clashes where we used to take other paths than we would in normal and quiet times. I was beaten and reprimanded when I was late in performing the task. ".

According to the testimonies, Houthi gunmen impose various penalties on child soldiers in the event of non-implementation of orders or failure to perform tasks, and these penalties include deprivation of food, imprisonment, sexual assault, and threats of death.

The regional director of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, Anas Jarjawi, said: “The United Nations should not tolerate the large-scale recruitment of children by the Houthi group in Yemen. This dangerous phenomenon should be at the top of the priorities in the periodic discussions between the group’s delegations and UN representatives in Yemen.” .

He added, "What is troubling is not only the inclusion of children in military operations, but feeding their simple minds with extremist ideas, filling them with hate speech and violence, and thus creating future extremism projects that may not be controlled given the huge number that the group recruits or aims to recruit in the future."

The two organizations indicated that child recruitment is a war crime according to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, as “the conscription of children under the age of fifteen years is compulsory or voluntary in the armed forces or in armed groups, or their use to actually participate in hostilities” falls within the court's definitions. For war crimes that trigger international criminal responsibility against their perpetrators.

The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor and the SAM Organization for Rights and Freedoms called on the Houthi group to immediately stop recruiting and exploiting children, as this poses a great threat to their lives and future, and a serious violation of their rights guaranteed in the relevant local and international charters and norms.

The two organizations called on the Security Council to refer the issue of child recruitment in Yemen to the International Criminal Court as a war crime under the Rome Statute that governs the court. It also urged the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict to visit Yemen as soon as possible to conduct a direct assessment of child recruitment in areas controlled by the Houthi movement.

It also called on the Yemeni government to treat child prisoners in accordance with the relevant international protocols, and to involve them in special rehabilitation programs to get rid of the effects of war, and to facilitate the process of their integration into society.