Yemen

August 2016: CAAC Open Debate: “The military forces of the Houthi militias and the republican guard forces of former President Saleh have targeted many schools in Aden and other areas. They are the enemies of education and science. Those militaries have occupied the university, transformed it into a barracks and planted landmines on the university campus as a form of reprisal against the students, who represent the future of Yemen. Leaders of the militias continue to visit schools and universities to recruit children to serve in combat.”

March 2017: Attended Buenos Aires Conference on Safe Schools.

May 2017: Zama met with NY expert, Amjad Q AL-Kumaim. He was extremely enthusiastic and said he was very keen to see Yemen sign, would send a note to capital and raise it with his DPR.

June 2017: GCPEA met with Yemen in Geneva. They said their government can’t make these types of decisions at the moment, but that we should work with the clusters, UN, INGOs and national NGOs to raise awareness of the Declaration and start using it as a tool. “Off the record” asked us to please speak with Saudi Arabia about attacks on schools, and said that Yemen would not be able to endorse until Saudi Arabia has.

August 2017: Human Rights Watch issued a report on the actions of Saudi Arabia security forces in Yemen, highlighting the issue of military use of schools and calling on the security forces to refrain from this practice.

September 2017: GCPEA provided language for the Human Rights Council NGO Joint Statement on Yemen, which was coordinated by Child Rights Connect, to refer to the issue of military use of schools, as well as attacks. New Zealand and Norway proposed language on attacks on schools for the Human Rights Council resolution on the situation of human rights in Yemen. The language was opposed by Japan, but retained in the final draft.

October 2017: The Mission in New York contacted Watchlist to advise that Yemen had endorsed the Declaration. This was confirmed by Oslo once the endorsement letter was received. Yemen publicized the endorsement. New Zealand and Norway proposed language on attacks on schools for the Human Rights Council resolution on the situation of human rights in Yemen. The language was opposed by Japan, but retained in the final draft.

June 2018: Zama met with Mr. Ali Mabkhot BalObaid, Second Secretary. He had attended the launch of Education Under Attack 2018 and had a copy on his table. He was very warm and mostly wanted to talk about “militias”. They planned to make a statement at the open debate. He offered to reach out to Djibouti, Libya, and Oman – he has good contacts with their diplomatic staff in New York.

July 2018: Joined Argentina’s joint statement to the UN SC during the open debate on children and armed conflict. Mentioned and welcomed the Safe Schools Declaration during the statement to the SC.

october 2018: Save the Children is working on implementation of the Safe Schools Declaration in Yemen. GCPEA provided advice on how to operationalize the Guidelines and shared links to GCPEA’s resources and materials.

December 2018: Save the Children Yemen issued a report, Education in Yemen – Make or Break for the Future of Yemen, which includes several paragraphs on the Declaration and Guidelines, on which Aurélie and Gisela provided feedback.Save the Children Yemen prepared a short brief with priority recommendations for the Universal Periodic Review of Yemen by the Human Rights Council which includes a recommendation to the Government of Yemen on implementation of the Declaration. Save the Children Geneva shared the brief with a targeted number of member states. There will be a donor pledging conference on Yemen on 26 February in Geneva. GCPEA (Amy) will prepare briefing paper.

January 2019: The Education Cluster in Aden, with the support of ECHO and Save the Children, held a Safe Schools Declaration workshop for Ministry of Education leadership. Recommendations agreed during the workshop include: conduct awareness-raising and outreach activities on safe schools to stakeholders including armed groups; integrate safe schools principles into school and university curricula; conduct further awareness-raising workshops with concerned ministries; develop training manuals on safe schools; and advocate for the relocation of army barracks away from urban centers. The Ministry of Education has established a Safe Schools Committee, and has launched an extensive awareness-raising and media campaign to raise awareness of the need to preserve schools as safe spaces.

February 2019: GCPEA released the briefing paper, Safeguard Yemen’s Future: Protect Education from Attack in advance of the Third High Level Pledging Conference.

March 2019: Clustered Interactive Dialogue with the SRSG CAAC Virginia Gamba, HRC Geneva: joined Norway’s joint statement on the Safe Schools Declaration.

June 2019: The Director General of Basic and Secondary Education of Yemen, who participated in the table-top exercise in Palma wrote to Sara, HRW, to give her the following feedback on the session: we recommend that the guidelines, guidelines and rules of the Declaration be updated to include mandatory texts, as well as legal provisions that prohibit and criminalize the use of schools in the war effort or logistical support, as well as the attack on them, assist or comfort the aggressors in schools. We recommend the addition of a rule that prohibits and criminalizes any development of military and security sites and ammunition stores of all kinds near schools and the transfer of those currently present places far from schools and population,

May 2019: Participated in the Third International Conference in Palma.

July 2019: In July, the Southern Transitional Council (STC), the armed non-state actor (ANSA) present in South Yemen since March 2018, signed three of the Deeds of Commitment with Geneva Call. The STC pledged to prohibit the recruitment and use of children below 18 years old and to facilitate the provision of education to children.

September 2019: A group of NGOs, including Save the Children, delivered a joint statement on Yemen, highlighting that there had been 44 verified attacks on schools and 32 instances of military uses of school. Two million children and young people remain out of school are being deprived of an education.

February 2020: Human Rights Watch made a submission ahead of the 77th pre-session of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women and its review of the Republic of Yemen’s compliance with the CEDAW. The submission provides a detailed account of the “Protection of Education and Equal Access to Education During Armed Conflict” and includes recommendations on the protections for schools and universities from military use and addressing the disproportionate harm to girls’ access to education as a result of hostilities and military use of schools.

April 2020: The Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict, in connection with the examination of the second report of the Secretary-General on children and armed conflict in Yemen (S/2019/453) addressed a message to all parties to the armed conflict in Yemen. The statement strongly condemns the attacks on schools and hospitals and called upon all parties to respect their civilian character. It called for the prevention of disproportionate and indiscriminate attacks or threats of attacks against such institutions and their personnel as well as the military use of schools and hospitals in violation of applicable international law. The statement also refers to the government’s endorsement of the Safe School Declaration, and stresses the importance of accountability for attacks against those institutions in violation of international law.

September 2020: Human Rights Watch made a submission to the Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights on Yemen. It recommends to the Committee that it calls on the government to collect data on military use of schools by government forces and armed groups and to continue to develop and share examples of its implementation of the Safe Schools Declaration’s commitments.

July 2022: At the UNSC CAAC debate : – Government has endorsed Safe Schools Declaration to protect schools from attacks

March 2023: During ID with SRSG CAAC (52 HRC) national statement: – We ask the SRSG to exert pressure on the Houthis to align themselves with the NAP to renounce to the military use of schools and recruitment of children