A/HRC/42/CRP.1 “I have to feed and care for my baby somehow, and there’s no longer any work. I started to go with any man who pays me with milk and nappies for the baby. I have contemplated suicide. I need help.” Survivor of sexual violence and exploitation968 626. Witnesses reported that patriarchal customs, including customary law systems and attendant discriminatory customs, have re-emerged during 2016-2019 in areas that have come under the influence of the de facto authorities, the Government, and United-Arab Emirates backed forces. This is most pronounced in Aden and southern areas, and within Sanaa, where it had previously been suppressed. Armed men from rural areas, many of whom are part of tribes and therefore already privileged by entrenched customs, have been further empowered by the parties to the conflict. As they came into areas and assumed control, they brought with them patriarchal norms. The parties’ undermining of state hegemony has led to the state being replaced by tribal committees. Customs and laws for women and girls to travel with a male guardian, restrictions on dress code, punishments for not wearing a veil, and for crimes of ‘immorality’, which had been suppressed in Aden and urban centres, have re-emerged.969 627. Since 2016, the de facto authorities have increasingly enforced patriarchal norms and laws, with strict interpretation, through use of state agencies and through public discourse, as a means to control women and girls and diminish their political participation. In 2018, public demonstrations against the de facto authorities in Sana’a began to be led by women due to fears that men were at higher risk of being killed or detained. Since 2018, the de facto authorities have at the same time enforced laws requiring women’s movement with a mahram as a guardian, and segregation of non-married men and women. They have also threatened or closed down businesses that have not enforced this requirement, thus reducing public spaces for positive dialogue and understanding between men and women. 970 628. In the last two years, parties to the conflict have accused women of prostitution, promiscuity, and immorality using derogatory terms as part of their public threats and harassment against opponents. In Sana’a, the de facto authorities used such threats and harassment when quashing public demonstrations involving women and levelled such accusations against women as a means to ‘legitimise’ otherwise apparently arbitrary detention of women and girls. In Yemen, such public accusations and detention have real consequences for women and girls, and effectively deepen the stigma already placed on women working outside of the home. It normalises the use of this pejorative abuse, including spreading the perception of women and girls as potential prostitutes, and reinforcing the patriarchal idea that their behaviour and their sexuality requires the control of their male guardians. All of this increases risks of domestic violence, dissuades women and girls from movement outside the home, and prevents their participation in the economic and political spheres.971 629. Witnesses have reported that men and boys are now increasingly expected to behave violently, as both fighters and guardians, in a way in which they were not before the conflict. This is firstly due to the reinstatement of the old customs and laws, which places these expectations on men, and linked to peer pressure to be involved in the ‘war effort’. At the same time, the humanitarian crisis has rendered men and boys economically disempowered and with limited options for work.972 In 2015-2019 the parties to the conflict have offered them an outlet for this through recruitment, while at the same time militarising them through religious and patriarchal discourses.973 “Men have become the fuel of the war, they don’t necessarily want to fight, but they have no choice, either because they are forced to fight, or feel 968 Confidential Sources on File. Confidential Sources on File. Saferworld 2017. 970 Confidential Sources on File. 971 See Section (e) below. 972 Confidential Sources on File. Saferworld 2017. Rohwerder 2017. 973 Confidential Sources on File. For more details on the Group’s findings regarding recruitment of boys, see the Child Protection Chapter. 969 151