Yemen is a young country struggling through many internal problems. A civil war began in 2015 between the Yemeni government, with backing from Saudi Arabia, and the Houthi rebels. Now, it has become a conflict involving international leaders and is one of the worst humanitarian crises in the last 100 years. This is partly due to the mass exploitation of Yemeni child soldiers. It is very difficult to discover the exact number of recruited children due to the fluid roles of children, associated with family shame and fear. However, numbers ranged from about 3,000 to 50,000 children as of 2019.
Growing Up
Many Yemeni child soldiers have faced unfathomable hardships even before fighting. They have been constantly fleeing their homes to avoid airstrikes and war zones. Because of this, 3.4 million children are out of school and many are trying to earn the little money they can like Salah, who is about 11, and whose family cannot afford meals every day. Starvation and disease-ridden camps have been the way of life for thousands of families since the war began five years ago.
Conversely, schools recruit children in regions with access to education through “indoctrination” from lectures. The Houthi movement’s founder gives these lectures and transcribes them into booklets known as “Malazem.” During this, children as young as 10 view graphic images of the war and others who have died for the cause. This encourages them to do the same. A mother told the Group of Experts, a partition of the U.N. Human Rights Council, that she fears for her son’s future. She also said that such practices are prevalent across the region.
Recruitment also occurs in surrounding countries like Sudan, a country also struggling from domestic conflicts. Approached at 14, Hager Shomo Ahmed had received an offer of $10,000 in exchange for his service in the war. Like many children, this was dire for his family, as they became penniless after others stole their cattle.
Persuaded and desperate for food, purpose and money, thousands of children like these entered the war.
During the War
From both the Saudi-led coalition and Houthi rebels, many Yemeni child soldiers went to the front lines. More than 1,000 have been coerced to fight.
Some dragged bodies from the field (sometimes even their own family), others would do kitchen services and others trained to use rifles. Naji, Younis and Saleh, Yemeni child soldiers who were around 11 and 13 at the time, recounted stories like these. A Saudi rehabilitation center that has helped about 400 boys has created a safe space for these stories.
A psychiatrist at a Marib rehabilitation center, Mayoub al-Makhlafi, says children have suffered as fighters and servants. Staffers recount children’s descriptions of experiencing beatings and sexual abuse from their own commanders.
Many, promised with money and non-combatant roles, find themselves in traffickers’ hands and training camps. Some are sent to patrol checkpoints 12 hours a day. Others are the first to be dispatched as human bodyguards. The young foot soldiers have no other option since they are lured with knowledge of a steady income sent home or depicted as martyrs.
The war has killed over 2,000 Yemeni child soldiers, as UNICEF reported in 2018. However, due to poor access to Yemen and limited data collection, these numbers are could be much higher.
Surviving After
Younis and his mother, Samira, shared the nightmares he used to have about the Houthis taking him again and how his mother would comfort him back to sleep.
In Dhamar, Yemen, a teacher places a photograph on desks of 14 former students during the Week of the Martyr, a celebration that the Houthi government enforces to continue its propaganda about the honor of fighting. The children, mostly fifth and sixth graders, mourn their friends. Those who do not die find themselves in displacement camps, like 14-year-old Morsal. Like many of his comrades, Morsal suffers from panic attacks, aggressive behavior and hearing loss from airstrikes and explosions.
Fifteen-year-old Mohammad’s father, Ali Hameed, details a time before the war and how his son had started working after graduating high school. He sadly continued to when his son left to join the Saudi coalition and then went missing. Some of the boys from Mohammad’s unit were able to flee and return home and the Houthis captured others. Mohammad was not part of either group.
Others like Hager, who had lost 180 men in his unit, were able to return home. By earning some money for his service, he was able to buy his family 10 cattle to restore their livelihood.
Relief Efforts
Coping with such traumatic events is extremely difficult for adults. However, the horrors are greater for children. Fortunately, The Wethaq Foundation for Civil Orientation developed eight rehabilitation centers across Yemen. As of 2019, it has helped 2,000 Yemeni child soldiers in psychological support and children’s rights education.
Internationally, the Child Protection and Children Friendly Spaces programs, initiatives of UNICEF, have given over 600,000 children psychosocial support through individual counseling, reading, cooperative games and family reunification, as of 2018 in Yemen.
Victim assistance is another crucial sector for children who have lost limbs. Such assistance is possible through Prosthesis and Rehabilitation centers in Yemen for children with disabilities as a result of the war. These centers receive support from the International Committee of the Red Cross. In just 2019, they have been able to provide over 1.1 million Yemenis emergency care in 18 hospitals that the IRC supports, and given food, essential home supplies, cash grants and access to clean water to 5.7 million Yemenis.
Broadly focused groups like War Child, working in North and South Yemen, have offered assistance to more than 30,000 children and families. War Child provides psychosocial support through coping mechanisms for trauma, recreational activities and legal support to enable school enrollment. Through school restoration and cash assistance to families, it is able to provide better futures for children.
Supporting these groups and others, vital for long-term recovery, is essential to nurturing the Yemeni child soldiers who have fallen victim to this waging war and the millions of civilians in the entire region suffering from starvation, displacement and great loss.
– Mizla Shrestha
Photo: Flickr
Together For Her: Domestic Violence Amid COVID-19
Over 50 female celebrities have pledged funds and support to actress Charlize Theron’s Together For Her Campaign. The campaign’s goal is to address additional cases of gender-based violence resulting from COVID-19 lockdowns around the globe. When these lockdowns began, Charlize’s thoughts immediately turned to the people in her native South Africa. She had concerns that conditions would worsen for women and children experiencing domestic violence.
The Effects of Staying at Home
According to the United Nations Population Fund, “Six months of lockdowns could result in an additional 31 million cases of gender-based violence.” Although estimates, these numbers reveal the startling consequences that women could face. There are two main ways in which this increase in domestic violence can occur. The first is disruptions in services like crisis centers and helplines. These resources can prevent abuse and help those who have experienced it. The second is the lockdowns. Women must stay at home with their abusers, forcing close contact with those who are harming them.
An Increase in Abuse
Already, there have been increases in abuse. In only the first two weeks of quarantine, calls to the National Hotline on Combating Domestic Violence in Ukraine increased by over 25%. Ghadeer Mohammed Ibrahim Qara Bulad, the director of the Women’s Development Project at the Islamic Charitable Association in Homs, Syria, has seen cases firsthand. While raising awareness for disease prevention, she witnessed husbands beating their wives, sometimes openly in front of their children.
Together for Her
The Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Project partnered with the Entertainment Industry Foundation and CARE to address the issue of increased domestic violence during COVID-19. Both organizations were very supportive of the cause and Together For Her. So far, the outreach project has donated $1 million to fighting the coronavirus. $500,000 of that was dedicated to the Together For Her Campaign. These funds are being distributed to “shelters, psychosocial support and counseling, helplines, crisis intervention, sexual and reproductive health services, community-based prevention, and advocacy work to address gender-based violence,” said Theron in an interview with Vogue.
Together for Her has united women across the fields of film, entertainment, sports and more. Some other figures who have pledged their support include Octavia Spencer, Amy Schumer, Lauren Conrad, Reese Witherspoon and Viola Davis. Many are survivors of abuse themselves. Viola Davis stated “I am a child survivor of domestic violence. It is the last of the acceptable abuses. It thrives on silence and metastasizes into lifelong trauma that can’t be quantified.” Victims of domestic abuse are continually harmed and even killed. Together for Her’s campaign to provide funds and emotional support is crucial. It lets victims know that they deserve better.
In the midst of a chaotic pandemic, issues like domestic violence often go overlooked. Fortunately, Charlize Theron’s Together For Her Campaign is working to ensure that abuse victims can receive the help and protection that they need.
– Alison Ding
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Raised Expectations: Gender Roles in Myanmar
Women’s Experiences of Post-War Development
The European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes hosted a webinar entitled “Gender and Development in Myanmar” on June 17, 2020. During the webinar, Dr. Elisabeth Olivius shared her findings that post-war reforms may entrench gender disparities in Myanmar. The country has experienced a relative period of peace over the last 15 years. There has been an upsurge in state-led development projects in the past decade. These projects aim to ameliorate legacies of war, namely extreme poverty, but a lack of state provisioning has actually widened gender inequalities.
Dr. Olivius explained how unequal gendered divisions of wartime labor prevent women from taking advantage of development. They shape who wins and loses in post-war transformations. Domestic responsibilities make women less mobile and prevent them from taking advantage of new opportunities. In addition to tangible constraints, women’s wartime roles forced them to endure trauma, exhaustion, and stress without respite. Dr. Olivius recounted one anecdote: during the war, the men of one village fled to the jungle to hide, leaving the women to feed and pacify the occupying army.
Traditional values—often intertwined with a preference for authoritarian rule—perpetuate the conservative gender attitudes that keep women out of the public sphere. This is exemplified by how women’s informal labor in Myanmar also underpins its need for economic reforms. Burmese women perform work in the mining industry and through reproductive labor—the birth and rearing of children—without the benefit of state aid. Feminist groups have seen successes like the creation of a national strategic plan and the drafting of a gender violence law. However, nationalist groups have advanced a largely regressive agenda.
Poverty and Gender Roles in Myanmar
The extreme poverty brought on by wartime conditions also disproportionately impacts women. Women sometimes have to walk miles to procure resources for their families, according to Dr. Olivius. One report details local women walking for hours to draw water from the closest well. This well was in a dark and oxygen-lacking cave several hours from their village. Without childcare alternatives, the women had to bring their children with them on this journey. These women have since reported miscarriages resultant from the grueling collection trips. Addressing women’s poverty in Myanmar isn’t just about securing better-paying jobs; it must include treatment for emotional and physical depletion and harm.
Furthermore, Dr. Olivius stressed that ownership of land in the context of economic restructuring is gendered and contributes to insecurity for women. Without the necessary political reforms, women go unrecognized as landholders. This lack of government-sanctioned landownership makes women particularly vulnerable to land appropriation by outside groups. One Burmese woman lamented, “The local authorities do not even recognize the woman’s name, just only the leader of the family. The leader is a man, so nothing for women…Now they have no land to survive.” Women are not considered family leaders, despite the male migration and war that resulted in many female-led households.
Elevating Women in Myanmar
Gender roles in Myanmar must change beyond the point of one woman publicly working in politics. While the 2008 revisions to Myanmar’s constitution show promise, they do not include any specifics concerning women’s representation. Quotas in such situations often serve as a distraction and don’t necessarily lead to development, and the representation of individual women in politics is compatible with gender inequality and negative attitudes towards women’s rights.
Women’s rights need to be constructed by and for the women impacted. One necessary step is collaboration with indigenous sources to reimagine Buddhism as a conceptual ground for women’s rights. Professor Htun emphasized in the webinar that religiosity and conservatism are not linked in Myanmar. It is important that donors support groups like Musawah, which is “spearheading a global Campaign for Justice in Muslim Family Laws,” and creating a Muslim vision of women’s rights. Donors can also encourage autonomous, local construction, even if it is religiously oriented. Progress begets progress. As the country makes political and economic strides, gender roles in Myanmar must become more equitable.
– Annie Iezzi
Photo: Flickr
The Media Shift On Poverty And Its Implications
There’s a classic tale in journalism about a reporter who asks her editor why their journal didn’t publish more pieces about domestic or global poverty. Her editor’s response: “Nobody wants to hear another story about how poor people are going to die in Africa. It’s depressing.” Opinions such as these have been common among nearly all media organizations for a good period of time. Now, however, a shift is occurring in poverty journalism; this shift is crucial to drawing attention to the important issue of extreme poverty.
The Problem With Traditional Media Methodology
Before this media shift, any focus on poverty was in its worst form. Of course, this is practical: news outlets need the audience to see what poverty looks like, and they’re more likely to pay attention to a drastic report. However, the problem with solely highlighting the depression and hopelessness of extreme poverty is that those emotions become the only messages portrayed in media depictions of underdevelopment. It doesn’t give audiences or influential individuals a chance to connect to those in need. It simply serves as an episodic report of foreign tragedy.
Moreover, an influx of these types of reports eventually becomes unappealing to audiences. They don’t want to see another situation they can do nothing about. Why should people care about an Asian village they’ve never seen or heard of and have no influence over? Before the media shift, poverty seemed like a perpetual problem that had nothing to do with the audience.
The effect that traditional media has had on audiences’ reactions to poverty reports is apparent; according to reports, less than 1% of stories from 52 major media outlets covered poverty as a result of declining interest and donations from viewership. Journalists and media organizations realized that there had to be a shift in the media portrayal of poverty if it was to get its fair share in the limelight.
The Shift
So what is changing in the media, and how is it helping to bring attention back to poverty? The answer: connection. Eschewing depressing messages in favor of hope and progress creates a connection between audiences and those in poverty. This media shift is creating a new age of poverty observation and understanding. According to Jurg Meyer, the problem with traditional media and its depictions of poverty was that it created caricatures of the less fortunate, leading to fear and aversion rather than a desire to help.
By redirecting focus toward facts and current events, this began to become less common. Rather than exclusively tragic stories, journalists now report facts and histories as well as practical solutions. This has helped to create a new wave of poverty journalism. The message of this new style of journalism attempts to convey that there are people living in the world who have no way to improve their own well-being or protect their rights. More importantly, this shift in journalism tells audiences they are more capable of helping than they realize.
Is The Shift Helping?
Perceptions of the media portrayal of poverty will always be divided. Before the 2008 financial crisis, many Americans held a negative opinion of the world’s poor, believing that it was a matter of personal responsibility. But after many Americans experienced sudden poverty firsthand in 2008, they became more sympathetic to the plight of the world’s poor. A media shift in tone and content led people to involve themselves in relief efforts. Keeping up the momentum of this shift in journalism can lead to a better future for millions in poverty worldwide.
– Donovan McDonald
Photo: Unsplash
Top 5 Commercials Taking on Poverty
Advertising, a multibillion-dollar industry, is one of the most prominent ways to spread information. The average American watches 16 minutes of commercials in every hour of television watched. When commercials shine a light on global poverty, more viewers will aspire to help the cause. Here are 5 commercials taking on poverty:
Unsung Hero by Thai Life Insurance
Thailand requires all children within the country to enroll in school. However, 14% of secondary school-aged children are not enrolled in school. The story begins with a benevolent man who lives a humble life giving back. He donates money daily to a family begging for money to send their daughter to school and does random kind deeds for several members of his community. As the community’s happiness grows, the man realizes that the daughter of the family has gone. He soon comes to realize that, with his donations, she now can attend school. Thai Life Insurance is a Christian insurance company dedicated to making people happier.
Giving by TrueMove
The commercial follows the life of an owner of a street food stand. In the beginning, a poor boy gets caught stealing medicine from a neighboring stall. The street stand owner pays for his stolen goods and gives him a bag of soup for his sick mother. Decades later, the man passes out and is extremely ill. The hospital fee comes back and the family isn’t able to afford it. A few days later, the family finds out that the little boy from the beginning is now a neurosurgeon and paid all the hospital bills. Although Thailand provides its citizens with universal healthcare, low-income families still cannot afford some hospital treatment fees. TrueMove is one of the leading mobile providers in Thailand, spreading the message, “Giving is the best communication.”
If London Were Syria by Save the Children
Among the 70.8 million displaced people, 31 million are children. Conflicts force children out of their homes and into international waters in search of safety. With war, terrorists, human trafficking and the additional threat of racism, Syrians and other displaced people face many humanitarian issues everywhere. The award-winning advertisement by Save The Children has almost 65 million views on YouTube, spreading empathy into millions of hearts. The film follows a young girl throughout the span of a year, from comfortable living to displaced. She undergoes near-death experiences and the loss of members of her family, spotlighting the hardships of a refugee.
Make a Change by Hyundai Philippines
This commercial by Hyundai Philippines overviewed the life of a blind beggar. At first, the beggar did not receive many donations, and every passerby ignored him. A man came along and reworded the sign, raising the number of donations. After a while, the beggar asked the man what he changed to the board. The new quote said, “It’s a beautiful day, but I can’t see it.” The touching story raises awareness about 19.8% of people living under the poverty line in the Philippines.
You Can Save Her by Magic Bus
This commercial begins with one high-class girl seeing a girl in poverty. The poor girl was in worn-out clothes and barefoot, working intensive labor for her abusive father. She strolls around her village, introducing facts about Indian children in poverty. Although child marriage has been illegal since 1929, a quarter of girls in India are married off before the age of 18. India houses 30% of the world’s children living in extreme poverty. Magic Bus is an Indian organization sponsoring Indian children throughout their lives. They send children to school and help them integrate into society, preventing immoral marriages and abuse.
Through these commercials taking on poverty, viewers realize the impact of global poverty on the world, encouraging them to act on their emotions. With donations from millions of viewers, organizations can reduce the number of people in poverty.
– Zoe Chao
Photo: Flickr
Water Disparities in Nigeria
The Problem of Water Contamination
Adriel Garrick, who grew up in Nigeria, knows about water inequality. Garrick told The Borgen Project that “When [she] was young [she] had a friend diagnosed with Typhoid,” an infection that drinking contaminated drinking water or food causes. She also said that “[Her] friend did not know he was drinking polluted water, and he was in the hospital for about three weeks, then later passed away.”
Death from water contamination is not unusual. According to the CIA’s World Factbook, as of 2015, 42.7% of Nigeria’s rural population and 19.2% of its urban population lacked clean, reliable drinking water. Diarrheal diseases, usually from contaminated drinking water, are the fifth leading cause of death in Nigeria.
Nigeria’s rural population is in a worse situation than the urban population for one reason: wealth. Wealth is a massive determinant of who gets clean drinking water there.
Water Supply System in Nigeria
According to Chidozie Nnaji, a researcher at the University of Nigeria, Nigeria does not treat drinking water as a social right. “The government provides water for the highly placed and charges them peanuts, but the same gesture is hardly extended to the generality of the masses who have to provide (purchase) their own water,” Nnaji told The Borgen Project. “Water is perceived as a social right for the highly placed, but as an economic good for the rest of the people. What an irony!”
Nigeria has a privatized water supply, contributing to disparities between the access of the wealthy and the poor. “Privatized water supply in developing countries is known for little infrastructure investments, neglecting low-income areas, and prioritizing profit over service quality,” Ismaila Rimi Abubakar, an associate professor at the University of Dammam, told The Borgen Project.
Not only can privatized water add to economic disparities, but it is also often unhealthy. Water vending is not a sustainable solution, according to Abubakar.
“Water vending is supposed to be a stop-gap solution to water outages or for households not yet connected to piped water supply,” said Abubakar. “Water vendors have now become the primary source of water for numerous households, . . . they should not be allowed as a long-term solution. . . . Water vendors and packaged water are expensive and not free from contamination.”
UNICEF’s Solution to Clean Water
The United Nations Children’s Fund has been working with the Nigerian government since 2005 to implement the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) program. The program aims to provide clean water to all of Nigeria and implement hygiene education and sanitation facilities. WaterAid is a global federation of nonprofits. It has an initiative working with the Nigerian government to provide clean water and sanitation to families who need it most.
Safe, clean water is a necessity for all people, not a privilege. Given the disparities in access to clean water in different economic sectors, it is clear that Nigeria is experiencing a crisis that will not be resolved until the country as a whole is able to claim clean water and the physical health that depends upon this resource as an essential human right.
– Sophia Gardner
Photo: Flickr
3 Aspects of Inequality in Colombia
In Colombia, the issue of income inequality is undeniable. Income inequality is present largely due to income distribution and poverty. The Colombian government proposed reforms for economic and social aspects. However, the reforms only benefitted businesses, leaving behind the working class, indigenous groups, young people, women and ethnic groups. In recent years, the divide between the rich and poor has become more noticeable.
3 Aspects of Inequality in Colombia
Looking to the Future
One nonprofit organization and NGO that is working to eliminate inequality in Colombia is the Pintando Caminos Asociación Para Recrear el Futuro. This NGO has worked for 12 years to improve the lives of children by providing opportunities to children in oppressed and impoverished areas, such as Bogota, Colombia. Bogota is known for its slums, the conditions of which the government overlooks, allowing cartels to easily control the area. This creates a cycle of poverty. This organization is trying to break that cycle by providing aid and necessary tools to allow children to succeed without inequality holding them back. So far, they have raised over $43,781 and have helped 140 children.
Due to the inequality in Colombia, only 10% of the population succeeds, whereas the rest are struggling from the unlivable wages and working conditions. This inequality differently affects the working class or low-income workers, as well as those who are most vulnerable in society: children.
Photo: Flickr
UPS Transports COVID-19 Relief Across the Globe
As the COVID-19 pandemic surges around the globe, world leaders are trying their best to help their people by providing masks, personal protection equipment (PPE), testing kits and treatment for the disease. However, who transports and delivers these items? That responsibility goes to logistics firms. These firms are responsible for shipping and handling items, including healthcare necessities such as PPE, testing kits and medicine. The United Parcel Service (UPS) is one such company that has been doing an outstanding job providing such logistics globally. Its main focus, however, is providing logistics to the least developed countries in their fight against COVID-19. UPS is at the frontlines using its resources to help the poor in receiving COVID-19 relief and essential healthcare supplies to fight this pandemic.
COVID-19 Relief Efforts
UPS has been at the frontlines at the fight against COVID-19 since February 2020 during the early stages of the pandemic. The company transported medical supplies—2 million masks, 11,000 protective suits and 280,000 pairs of medical gloves—to China free of cost in February. This action provided Chinese health clinics and hospitals the resources they needed at a faster rate.
The logistics company has also partnered with the drone delivery service Zipline to provide blood bags, medicine, vaccines and healthcare equipment to remote regions in Rwanda and Ghana. It has completed about 44,900 flights throughout the pandemic. This has helped Ghana and Rwanda receive life-saving medication, assistance and other equipment in short amounts of time. Such supply chain innovation systems have put UPS at the center of the logistics scene in providing essential supplies to developing countries.
Making Sure Vaccines Are Available for All
UPS is also partnering with Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance. The partnership is working to ensure that unvaccinated individuals receive the COVID-19 vaccine upon development. UPS subsidiary company Marken specializes in supply chain logistics for healthcare, science and clinical supplies. Marken is preparing for providing transportation and logistics for the COVID-19 vaccines when they are available. The company believes that if it keeps transportation and resources ready, delivering vaccines will be faster and easier, especially to developing regions.
UPS has also committed to donating $3 million to provide free medical supplies and automated stock management systems to Uganda. UPS will soon help the country receive vaccines at a faster and efficient rate.
A Humanitarian Foundation
UPS has a separate nonprofit organization called the UPS Foundation. It focuses on providing humanitarian relief, environmental sustainability and inclusiveness within communities. UPS is at the frontlines in disaster response and humanitarian aid throughout the globe. The UPS Foundation assists many countries during disasters. The COVID-19 pandemic has mobilized the foundation to continue its work in struggling countries. The UPS Foundation invested about $20 million in disaster relief just last year in 2019 and has given U.N. agencies at least $6 million in grants to fight against COVID-19.
UPS and its humanitarian foundation has been essential in the fight against COVID-19. The private business works to improve the lives of those in need and continues to do so in the face of this pandemic.
– Sadat Tashin
Photo: Flickr
The Lives of Yemeni Child Soldiers
Yemen is a young country struggling through many internal problems. A civil war began in 2015 between the Yemeni government, with backing from Saudi Arabia, and the Houthi rebels. Now, it has become a conflict involving international leaders and is one of the worst humanitarian crises in the last 100 years. This is partly due to the mass exploitation of Yemeni child soldiers. It is very difficult to discover the exact number of recruited children due to the fluid roles of children, associated with family shame and fear. However, numbers ranged from about 3,000 to 50,000 children as of 2019.
Growing Up
Many Yemeni child soldiers have faced unfathomable hardships even before fighting. They have been constantly fleeing their homes to avoid airstrikes and war zones. Because of this, 3.4 million children are out of school and many are trying to earn the little money they can like Salah, who is about 11, and whose family cannot afford meals every day. Starvation and disease-ridden camps have been the way of life for thousands of families since the war began five years ago.
Conversely, schools recruit children in regions with access to education through “indoctrination” from lectures. The Houthi movement’s founder gives these lectures and transcribes them into booklets known as “Malazem.” During this, children as young as 10 view graphic images of the war and others who have died for the cause. This encourages them to do the same. A mother told the Group of Experts, a partition of the U.N. Human Rights Council, that she fears for her son’s future. She also said that such practices are prevalent across the region.
Recruitment also occurs in surrounding countries like Sudan, a country also struggling from domestic conflicts. Approached at 14, Hager Shomo Ahmed had received an offer of $10,000 in exchange for his service in the war. Like many children, this was dire for his family, as they became penniless after others stole their cattle.
Persuaded and desperate for food, purpose and money, thousands of children like these entered the war.
During the War
From both the Saudi-led coalition and Houthi rebels, many Yemeni child soldiers went to the front lines. More than 1,000 have been coerced to fight.
Some dragged bodies from the field (sometimes even their own family), others would do kitchen services and others trained to use rifles. Naji, Younis and Saleh, Yemeni child soldiers who were around 11 and 13 at the time, recounted stories like these. A Saudi rehabilitation center that has helped about 400 boys has created a safe space for these stories.
A psychiatrist at a Marib rehabilitation center, Mayoub al-Makhlafi, says children have suffered as fighters and servants. Staffers recount children’s descriptions of experiencing beatings and sexual abuse from their own commanders.
Many, promised with money and non-combatant roles, find themselves in traffickers’ hands and training camps. Some are sent to patrol checkpoints 12 hours a day. Others are the first to be dispatched as human bodyguards. The young foot soldiers have no other option since they are lured with knowledge of a steady income sent home or depicted as martyrs.
The war has killed over 2,000 Yemeni child soldiers, as UNICEF reported in 2018. However, due to poor access to Yemen and limited data collection, these numbers are could be much higher.
Surviving After
Younis and his mother, Samira, shared the nightmares he used to have about the Houthis taking him again and how his mother would comfort him back to sleep.
In Dhamar, Yemen, a teacher places a photograph on desks of 14 former students during the Week of the Martyr, a celebration that the Houthi government enforces to continue its propaganda about the honor of fighting. The children, mostly fifth and sixth graders, mourn their friends. Those who do not die find themselves in displacement camps, like 14-year-old Morsal. Like many of his comrades, Morsal suffers from panic attacks, aggressive behavior and hearing loss from airstrikes and explosions.
Fifteen-year-old Mohammad’s father, Ali Hameed, details a time before the war and how his son had started working after graduating high school. He sadly continued to when his son left to join the Saudi coalition and then went missing. Some of the boys from Mohammad’s unit were able to flee and return home and the Houthis captured others. Mohammad was not part of either group.
Others like Hager, who had lost 180 men in his unit, were able to return home. By earning some money for his service, he was able to buy his family 10 cattle to restore their livelihood.
Relief Efforts
Coping with such traumatic events is extremely difficult for adults. However, the horrors are greater for children. Fortunately, The Wethaq Foundation for Civil Orientation developed eight rehabilitation centers across Yemen. As of 2019, it has helped 2,000 Yemeni child soldiers in psychological support and children’s rights education.
Internationally, the Child Protection and Children Friendly Spaces programs, initiatives of UNICEF, have given over 600,000 children psychosocial support through individual counseling, reading, cooperative games and family reunification, as of 2018 in Yemen.
Victim assistance is another crucial sector for children who have lost limbs. Such assistance is possible through Prosthesis and Rehabilitation centers in Yemen for children with disabilities as a result of the war. These centers receive support from the International Committee of the Red Cross. In just 2019, they have been able to provide over 1.1 million Yemenis emergency care in 18 hospitals that the IRC supports, and given food, essential home supplies, cash grants and access to clean water to 5.7 million Yemenis.
Broadly focused groups like War Child, working in North and South Yemen, have offered assistance to more than 30,000 children and families. War Child provides psychosocial support through coping mechanisms for trauma, recreational activities and legal support to enable school enrollment. Through school restoration and cash assistance to families, it is able to provide better futures for children.
Supporting these groups and others, vital for long-term recovery, is essential to nurturing the Yemeni child soldiers who have fallen victim to this waging war and the millions of civilians in the entire region suffering from starvation, displacement and great loss.
– Mizla Shrestha
Photo: Flickr
Addressing 3 Civil Rights Issues in Cuba
For years, Cubans have experienced severe restrictions in their ability to exercise freedom of speech. While they do not have the same First Amendment liberties as in the United States, Cubans are fiercely fighting for their rights to expression, speech and access to online opinion articles. Change is steadily emerging for Cubans, but the process has been slow. Here are three civil rights issues in Cuba.
3 Civil Rights Issues in Cuba
Involving NGOs
Acknowledging Cuban citizens’ need for support in securing their civil liberties, United States organizations have begun to intervene. For example, The Global Rules of Law & Liberty Legal Defense Fund (GLA) in Alexandria, Virginia is a legal defense fund assisting citizens who cannot afford legal guidance. The GLA had total revenue of $92,400 in 2018, enabling this NGO to provide legal resources like local councils and political information to communities within multiple Latin American countries including Cuba. By enhancing resources for Cuba’s legal system and due process, actions from groups like the GLA could become significant in helping Cubans secure freedom of expression.
The GLA has helped Cuban journalists like Roberto de Jesus Quiñones Haces, who is serving a one-year sentence for charges of “resistance” and “disobedience,” according to the global liberty alliance. He was arrested for reporting the prosecution of Pastors Rigal and Exposito, who were homeschooling their children in Guantanamo. The GLA recognized this arrest as persecution of the press and agreed to support Quiñones, increasing national awareness of his unjust prosecution by filing a Request for Precautionary Measures with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and publishing a video documenting his story. Since the beginning of his jail time in September 2019, Quiñones and the immorality of persecuting the press have gained widespread attention in both the United States and Cuban legal systems.
Another United States NGO advocating for civil rights in Cuba is Plantados until Freedom and Democracy in Cuba in Miami, Florida. By providing aid to Cubans imprisoned for expressing support for democracy, this organization aims to support freedom and democracy in an environment where these fundamental liberties are largely ignored.
The Future of Civil Rights in Cuba
Thoroughly addressing these three civil rights issues in Cuba could help Cubans finally gain freedoms that democratic nations around the world enjoy. As several United States NGOs have demonstrated, actions like simply sharing news and advocating for change have the potential to encourage progress. In doing so, Cuba has the power to become a model for other developing countries in the fight for civil liberties.
– Grant Ritchey
Photo: Flickr
3 Bahamian Charities Combating COVID-19
3 Bahamian Charities Combating COVID-19
Between natural disasters, a pandemic and pre-existing struggles with poverty, the Bahamas undoubtedly have several unique challenges left to work through. However, with continued support from passionate Bahamian charities, there is promise for the nation to repair itself in the near future.
– Katrina Robinson
Photo: Flickr