A/HRC/45/CRP.7 235. Both international humanitarian law and international human rights law contain prohibitions on the recruitment of children into armed forces or armed groups and their use in hostilities. International humanitarian law sets the minimum age for recruitment and use at 15 years of age335 and a similar approach is undertaken in the CRC.336 However, States can commit to a higher threshold age under the regime of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict, (OP-CRC-AC). Yemen has ratified the OP-CRC-AC and accepted 18 years as the minimum age for the compulsory recruitment of children into the armed forces.337 In addition, Yemen has made a binding declaration under art 3(2) of the OP-CRC-AC, indicating 18 years as the minimum age for voluntary recruitment. State parties to the OP-CRC-AC are required to take all feasible measures to keep all children in their armed forces who have not attained the age of 18 years from directly participating in hostilities.338 The OP-CRC-AC provides that armed groups should not recruit or use in hostilities children under the age of 18 years, and obliges States to take all feasible measures to prevent such recruitment or use.339 State parties are also obliged to take all feasible measures to ensure children are demobilised and are to accord appropriate assistance for their physical and psychological recovery and their social integration.340 International criminal law allows prosecution of those violating these proscriptions for recruitment, conscription and use in direct hostilities of children younger than 15.341 236. Yemen has also ratified the International Labour Organization Convention Concerning the Prohibition and Immediate Action for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour (No.182), which recognises the forced or compulsory recruitment for use in armed conflict of children under the age of 18 as one of the “worst forms of child labour”, within the category of “practices similar to slavery”.342 Among the many rights specifically attaching to children under the CRC is the right to be protected from economic exploitation and from performance of any work likely to be hazardous to or interfere with the child’s education, or harmful to the child’s health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development.343 Recruiting, transporting, transferring, harbouring or receiving children for the purpose of exploitation (which includes, for example, their recruitment and use in hostilities) also constitutes trafficking.344 335 Additional Protocol II, art. 4(3)(c). See also ICRC Study on Customary International Humanitarian Law, rules 136 and 137. 336 CRC, art. 38(3). 337 OP-CRC-AC, art. 2. 338 OP-CRC-AC, art. 1. Note that, in February 2020, the Government of Yemen issued a Presidential Directive prohibiting the recruitment and use of children under 18 by “the primary and secondary armed forces and security units” affiliated with the Ministries of Defense and Interior; the Directive requires age screenings of current and new recruits, demobilisation of under 18s, and accountability for alleged perpetrators: Information Report 46 (include reference). 339 OP-CRC-AC, arts. 4(1) and (2). 340 OP-CRC-AC, art. 6(3). 341 Rome Statute, art. 8(2)(e)(vii). See also ICRC Study on Customary International Humanitarian Law, rules 136-137. During the drafting of this war crime, the intention was to cover both “direct participation in combat and also active participation in military activities linked to combat such as scouting, spying, sabotage and the use of children as decoys, couriers or at military checkpoints. It would not cover activities clearly unrelated to the hostilities such as food deliveries to an airbase or the use of domestic staff in an officer’s married accommodation. However, use of children in a direct support function such as acting as bearers to take supplies to the front line, or activities at the front line itself, would be included within the terminology”, as quoted in ICRC Study on Customary International Humanitarian Law Study, practice for rule 137. 342 ILO Convention (No 182), art. 3(a). 343 CRC, art. 32. 344 Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, Supplementing the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organised Crime, art. 3(c). Yemen is not a party to this Protocol, Coalition States, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, have ratified this Protocol. 63