On 15 June 2020, the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, released a report on Children and Armed Conflict (CAC Report) to the UN General Assembly Council. According to the CAC Report, the Saudi Arabia-led coalition, which consists of several Middle Eastern and African countries’ military groups, has been removed from the UN’s blacklist of those who participate in the “violation of killing and maiming” children.
The UN’s blacklist identifies state and non-state actors who violate children’s human rights. The list does not impose any sanctions on the identified parties, but instead aims to encourage parties to limit, if not end, such violations on children in the context of conflict and civil unrest.
The decision to delist the coalition comes relatively quickly after the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict (Special Representative) and the Force Commander of the Saudi-led coalition signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on 26 March 2019. The aim of the MoU was to protect Yemeni children during armed conflict and to minimise, if not eliminate, grave human rights violations against children.
The Special Representative has identified six grave violations of the rights of children:
1) recruitment and use of children;
2) killing or maiming of children;
3) sexual violence against children;
4) attacks against schools or hospitals;
5) abduction of children; and
6) denial of humanitarian access.
Guterres indicated that the Saudi-led coalition implemented the relevant activities under the MoU and, as a result, there has been a “decrease in killing and maiming due to air strikes”. He further explained that the coalition will be monitored and if human rights violations against children begin to increase, the coalition will be added to the list once again.
The removal of the coalition seems to suggest that the impact of warfare on Yemeni children, and the rest of the population, is improving. However, in 2019 approximately “1,400 children were maimed or killed by government forces and non-state actors,” which includes the deaths of 222 children caused by the Saudi-led coalition. In contrast, 313 children were killed by the Houthi rebels and 96 by Yemeni government forces. However, both these parties still remain on the UN’s blacklist.
This is not the first time that the Saudi-led coalition has been removed from the list. The previous UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, added the coalition in 2016 but subsequently removed it after Saudi Arabia allegedly threatened to cut funding to the UN.
On the day of the delisting, 13 civilians, including four children, were killed following an attack on their vehicle in Yemen by the Saudi-led coalition. In light of the attack, Save the Children’s country director in Yemen, Xavier Joubert, described the Secretary-General’s decision as “far too premature”. According to Jo Becker, Children’s Rights Advocacy Director at Human Rights Watch, “the secretary-general has brought shame on the UN by removing the Saudi-led coalition from his ‘list of shame’ even as it continues to kill and injure children in Yemen”.
YEMENI CHILDREN ARE BEING DEPRIVED OF THEIR BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS
Living in a country that is exposed to daily air strikes and other armed conflict causes irreparable damage to the lives of ordinary people. Children are particularly vulnerable in these circumstances and are stripped of their childhood. The adherence of states to international laws should be a top priority to ensure that children are kept as safe as possible during times of conflict and civil unrest.
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is specifically designed to protect the rights of children. Article 38(3) of the Convention provides that:
States Parties shall refrain from recruiting any person who has not attained the age of 15 years into their armed forces. In recruiting among those persons who have attained the age of 15 years but who have not attained the age of eighteen years, States Parties shall endeavour to give priority to those who are oldest.
Despite this, the parties involved in the Yemen War recruited approximately 3,034 children between April 2013 and December 2018 - some as young as 11-years-old - to patrol bases, man checkpoints, and deliver water, food, and equipment to military stations.
The figures are most likely significantly higher than the official reports. Simply reducing the number of deaths, recruitments, attacks, and abductions is not adequate. States need to be held accountable for their actions, which may be achieved by imposing a more severe sanction under international law, such as an arms embargo or freezing assets. Adding and removing parties from a list is unsatisfactory and does not impose a reasonable penalty against them for committing grave human rights violations.
After having completed the Bar Professional Training Course (2018), Safia currently working as a Costs Advisor in a law firm. Her life goal is to make a positive change in the society we live in, no matter how small that change might be.