A/HRC/45/CRP.7
Dhamar, Sa’ada, Amran, and Hajjah Governorates.380 As Houthi volunteer educators were
appointed and Mobilisation Committees consolidated control over schools, recruitment and
propaganda activities took place on a more regular basis. These included weapons
demonstrations and speeches from the Houthis, including members of Mobilisation
Committees or MoE officials who referred to students’ “duty and responsibility to participate
in the war.” Recruitment messaging was clearly gendered; boys, not girls, were exclusively
targeted as future fighters on the frontlines.
b. Financial offers
261. Poverty and hunger motivated boys to join the Houthis or their families to consent for
their sons to fight. Out of the 11 cases verified by the Group, eight boys joined the Houthis
as an economic survival strategy. Houthi supervisors381 would offer boys salaries ranging
from 40,000-50,000 Yemeni Riyals, as well as the prospect of owning a gun, a symbol of
masculinity and adulthood in Yemeni society. For example, the Group received credible
allegations of two brothers who joined to support their family of over 20 members, and a
different boy whose father, after having initially refused to allow him to join, agreed two
years later due to financial pressures.382
c. Abduction
262. In poor areas of Sana’a and governorate capitals, such as Dhamar city, abduction was
a means of recruitment of some boys by Houthi supervisors. In some of the 11 cases verified,
boys were abducted. For those who joined after agreeing to financial offers, their families,
unaware of their whereabouts, considered their children to have been kidnapped.
d. Peer recruitment by other boys
263. Multiple sources reported that children already associated with the Houthis,
particularly the sons or nephews of Houthi supervisors, were tasked with recruiting other
boys their own age.383 Brothers and male cousins volunteered one after another in a domino
effect, to avenge a boy’s death or to earn a similar salary.384
e. Recruitment in male detention centres as a condition for release
264. Child detainees in Dhamar Central Prison, Ta‘izz’s Al-Saleh Prison, Dhamar Ghabraa
(Northern) Prison, and Dhamar Political Security Prison were reportedly offered release from
detention in exchange for agreeing to fight on the frontlines.385 Allegedly, boy detainees were
threatened, intimidated, tortured, subjected to ill-treatment and indoctrination by Houthi
guards as a way to pressure them to join the Houthis.386
265. Once recruited, boys attended a well-organised three-month training course, during
which they were often transported to other governorates or trained in local schools and public
places. As they proceeded through multiple levels of ideological and military trainings, the
boys were not allowed to communicate with their families.387 Multiple sources reported that,
after training, the boys returned home with noticeably different emotional and physical
380
Ibid.
Supervisors have been described as part of the informal system of supervision created by the
Houthis “next to the “formal” managers and executive officers of the security, military, and general
services”. They are reportedly meant to act “on behalf of the Houthi movement (…) to guarantee that
central directives are locally executed.” The system includes educational, social and security
supervisors. See ACAPS, The Houtis Supervisory System, June 2020, available at:
https://www.acaps.org/sites/acaps/files/products/files/20200617_acaps_yemen_analysis_hub_the_hou
thi_supervisory_system.pdf
382
Confidential sources on file.
383 Confidential sources on file.
384 Confidential sources on file.
385 Confidential sources on file.
386 Confidential sources on file.
387 Confidential sources on file.
381
69
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