HRITC stresses the need to prosecute the perpetrators of crimes against Yemeni children
Taiz
On the Universal Children’s Day, the Human Rights Information and Training Center (HRITC) called on all parties in Yemen to restore respect for childhood, preserve their rights and spare them the deadly conflict that has existed in Yemen for more than six years.
The center’s statement on the International Children’s Day, which falls on November 20, said that children in Yemen are the group most affected by the ongoing war.
HRITC, a regional organization with a consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations, indicated that Yemen, since the Houthi militia coup against the legitimate state institutions in Yemen in September 2014, has entered a dangerous turning point in the series of violations that particularly affect childhood.
The images of violations that affect the children of Yemen are numerous, the most dangerous of which is the placement of children in armed conflict and the continued recruitment of children and exposing them to death.
Although Yemen has ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the protocol on criminalizing the inclusion of children in armed conflict and the Mine Ban Treaty, all of these international principles have been struck by them, and Yemen has become the scene of a devastating conflict that affected the childhood sector before any other sector.
According to reports of international organizations working in Yemen, the country is experiencing the greatest humanitarian tragedy and is threatened by real famine.
According to the World Food Program, 100,000 children under the age of five are at risk of starvation
Furthermore, one in five children suffers from malnutrition.
According to UNICEF, Yemen is among the worst countries in which children can live, and more than 12 million children in Yemen are in need of urgent humanitarian assistance.
The Human Rights Information and Training Center (HRITC) affirmed that despite this painful image, the efforts of the international community regarding child protection in Yemen are still completely deficient, and the work of humanitarian organizations is marred by many question marks, mismanagement, and interests intersect with bodies controlling the war scene in Yemen.
The Center called for a transparent international conference that opens the file of grave violations against children in Yemen, including direct killing, mine victims, and the loss of basic rights in terms of health, education and food.
Moreover that the list of violations of children’s rights from parties to war and fighting militia be presented in urgent legal trials.
Also, HRITC said that national courts and human rights activists should work as soon as possible on this step, as it is the most important to deter the persistence of multiple parties in violating children’s rights, and that this is within the urgent moral and legal obligations and to complete this in an international legal follow-up in accordance with internationally recognized conventions and procedures to prosecute all perpetrators of crimes.
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Taiz 20 November 2020
