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Being kept behind: the impact of conflict on the education of Yemen children

Countries
Yemen
Sources
War Child UK
Publication date
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The conflict in Yemen has now entered its fifth year. The United Nations (UN) describes the conflict as the world’s worst man-made humanitarian crisis.
Alongside the tens of thousands of casualties caused by the conflict, 80% of the population need humanitarian assistance, including an estimated 7.4 million children.

The conflict is having a serious impact on children’s right to a quality education. Worryingly, the number of children in need of assistance to access education has risen year on year, reaching 4.7 million by the end of 2018.

The UN reports annually on the six grave violations of children’s rights in Yemen, which have been committed by a number of parties to the conflict, including the Saudi-led coalition, the Houthis and other armed groups. One of these violations is attacks on schools.

Reports of attacks on schools have risen dramatically since 2015, and UN assessments confirm over 2,000 schools are not fit for purpose due to physical damage caused by the conflict as well as the presence of armed groups.

The UN has identified 95 attacks on schools between 2015 and 2017 which meet the evidence requirement to be classified as a grave violation. Three quarters of these have been carried out by the Saudi led coalition.

Where schools remain safe and undamaged, their operation is hampered by insufficient teachers, due to non-payment of salaries, and inadequate basic resources, including drinking water and latrines. War Child research, carried out in December 2018 across ten districts in Yemen, also highlighted that families are often concerned for the safety of children at, and on their way to schools. This often leads to parents keeping children at home. Even when at school, it is difficult for children to learn as they struggle to deal with the psychological impact of living through war and the effects of hunger and malnourishment.

These factors are having a disproportionate impact on girls’ access to education during the conflict, with the UN reporting that 36% of girls are currently out of school compared to 24% of boys.Damage to the education sector now will have long lasting consequences, impacting the education of future generations.

Despite the urgency of need, UN Yemen humanitarian response plans have remained underfunded year on year, with the education cluster securing less than half (43%) of appeal amounts requested between 2011 and 2018.

To ensure access to education, not only does funding need to increase, but it also requires parties to the conflict to uphold the legal and political obligations that exist on states to protect children’s rights. Despite such obligations, attacks on schools in Yemen have continued unabated by many armed parties to the conflict and especially by the two main sides, the Houthi and Saudi-led coalition forces.

The fact that education is under attack in Yemen is symptomatic of a wider pattern of flagrant disregard for international law throughout the conflict. There have been reports of indiscriminate and unlawful violence including repeated attacks on homes, hospitals, schools and markets. From October 2017 to September 2018, the UN verified and documented 2,367 victims of grave child rights violations in Yemen which is an increase of 23% from the previous year.15 Even with a wide range of reputable sources reporting on atrocities and potential war crimes committed by all parties to the conflict, there has been no concerted effort by the international community to hold perpetrators to account.

Since 2015, 87 states have endorsed the Safe Schools Declaration, a political commitment to protect children, teachers, schools and universities from attack and take measures to stop the military use of education facilities during conflict. The UK and France have made this commitment, but despite the clear evidence of attacks on schools by the Saudi-led coalition, they have continued to provide the coalition with political backing and military support through arms sales.

These inconsistencies pose a threat to attempts to uphold the international rules-based system. Calling out violations of international law ring hollow, in this conflict and across the world, when governments including the UK, continue to profit from the Saudi-led coalition. With the conflict now into its fifth year, there is an urgency with which the international community must act to reinforce their obligations under international law to protect children and educational institutions, condemn perpetrators of violations and abuses and hold them to account. This matters not only in the immediate term for the protection of children’s rights in Yemen, as in other conflicts but also in the longer term for the credibility and survival of the rules based international order.
Therefore, we call on the international community to implement five key recommendations:

  1. Reinforce existing legal and political frameworks to protect schools and endorse and implement the Safe Schools Declaration and its guidelines in full

  2. Increase funding to restore damaged and destroyed schools and provide funding to overcome other barriers to children’s ability to access education

  3. Press parties to the conflict to comply with their obligations under international law and existing commitments based on political agreements

  4. Support all international efforts to investigate violations of international humanitarian law (IHL) and violations and abuses of international human rights law (IHRL) and take every effort to ensure accountability for atrocities committed in Yemen

  5. Immediately cease arms transfers and military support to all parties to the conflict