The Yemeni Coalition for Monitoring Human Rights Violations (Rasd Coalition) organized, yesterday, Monday, August 7, 2023, in Al-Nashma, south of Taiz Governorate, an awareness-raising seminar on defining the six grave violations of children in Yemen, as part of the project to raise awareness and ensure the rights of children during the conflict in Yemen (SAFE).

Mohammed Abdulghani, opened the seminar on behalf of representing “Rasd Coalition”, with a remarks in which he reviewed the project’s activities and the objectives of the seminar, and talked about the suffering and violations that have accompanied children in Yemen since the beginning of the war, calling on the parties to the conflict to stop committing violations against children, pointing to the importance monitoring and documenting violations which is an essential task to ensure that perpetrators are held accountable.

The Acting Secretary-General of the Local Council and Head of the Service Committee, Muhammad Ali Farea, referred to the grave violations children are exposed to, including the denial of humanitarian aid and attacks on schools and hospitals.

The deputy director of the Human Rights Office in Taiz, Ahmed Taha Al-Ma’baqi, said that in the international humanitarian law there are 25 articles concerned with protecting the rights of children in light of the armed conflict, which identified six serious crimes committed against children.

Researchers participated in the seminar with three working papers during, where Nabil Abdel Hafeez, human rights activist presented a paper entitled Defining the Six Grave Violations of Children in Yemen.

He noted that international reports confirmed that 11,019 children were killed and maimed in Yemen, 3,993 children were recruited, 152 children were kidnapped and 442 others were arrested, in addition to documenting of 672 attacks on an educational facility between 2015-2020.

Ms. Etisam Taha gave a presentation on the local and international legal and political frameworks related to the rehabilitation and integration of children into society, in which she touched on the need to reintegrate children and intensify efforts to end the current cycle of violence.

The researcher, Weam Al-Maqtari, presented an introductory summary of the local and international mechanisms for child protection and the legislation that guarantees accountability for violating children's rights, noting that there are four official local mechanisms, which are the judiciary, parliament, the Ministry of Human Rights, and finally the official media.

She added that there are informal mechanisms represented by human rights activists, civil society organizations, initiatives and alliances, in addition to the National Commission to Investigate Human Rights Violations.

It is worth noting that the seminar concluded into important recommendations that will be presented later to the internationally recognized government and other parties.