11/01/2012 - While a deal has been brokered for the resignation of Yemen's leader, children remain affected by their sometimes-dire political and socioeconomic environments on a variety of fronts.
For almost a year, political turbulence and poverty have threatened to push Yemen towards humanitarian disaster. Constituting more than hald of the country's population, children under the age of 18 are a particularly vulnerable group. Significant child protection issues are at stake in Yemen, including child marriage, child soldiers, psychosocial wellbeing as well as health and nutrition.
In rural areas in particular, aid workers remain concerned about the safety of the girl child. With financial pressures mounting, there is worry that families will marry off their daughters at an early age to ease these pressures
The Washington Post reports that children have been used as fighters in Yemen’s civil conflict.“Children have been deployed as soldiers by all sides in the conflict, and scores have been killed in the crossfire,” said a photojournalism piece published two days ago.
The effect of the violence on children is evident in the symptoms of psychosocial trauma some of them exhibit, including nightmares and a fear of planes flying overhead.
Demonstrations and crackdowns, meanwhile, have affected aid operations. In some areas, vaccination rates fell 40 per cent among children, leaving more young people susceptible to preventable diseases.
Malnutrition rates are high, with almost half of children moderately or severely underweight and more than half suffering from stunting. The child mortality rate in 2009 was 66 per 1,000 live births.
Household survey results from western Yemen were released last month, showing that there was a 31.7 global acute malnutrition rate. In other words, about one in three children suffered moderate or severe malnutrition. A total of seven million people may be food insecure in Yemen.
Earlier this week, fresh violence erupted when a controversial law granting amnesty to those who served under Yemen’s outgoing 33-year regime was announced. In a matter of weeks, President Ali Abdullah Saleh is due to step down from power.
The Gulf Co-operation Council-brokered law creates a difference in the administration of justice between Yemen and the rest of the countries involved in “Arab Spring.” Former Tunisian dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was sentenced to 35 years in prison for corruption (in absentia). Meanwhile, Egyptian former president Hosnu Mubarak is being tried for a number of charges related to corruption and civilian deaths. Before he was killed be rebel forced, Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi was to be tried by the country’s new administration.
“The government commitment at the central level [line ministries] to allocate resources and implement and monitor routine activities is inadequate; the capacity of decentralized government institutions to fulfill their obligations is very weak,” said Geert Cappelaere in the United Nations’ Integrated Regional Information Networks.
Ms. Cappelaere is the United Nations Children’s Fund’s country representative in Yemen. The governance situation has forced aid agencies such as UNICEF to work more directly with community-based organizations.
“It's absolutely valid to say children are bearing the biggest brunt of the political situation here,” she said to the Post.
