Alert over child labour in Yemen: Child drivers against poverty

In the country devastated by more than 10 years of war, there are very young children, even 13-year-olds, driving taxis or public transport. The hope of earning even small amounts of money to support impoverished families. UN: the crisis triggered by the conflict ‘has disproportionately and devastatingly affected women and girls’.

Sana'a (AsiaNews) - In Yemen, devastated by war and poverty, children as young as 13 years old can be found driving commercial vehicles, starting with taxis, to support their families who have no other means of support due to the ongoing civil war and critical economic issues.

These difficulties are fuelled by the lack of breadwinners or men able to work, because they have died in battle or as a result of violence; hence the need for children between the ages of 13 and 15 to drive vehicles to earn some money to lift themselves out of extreme poverty.

Khalil Sasaga, 13, said he learned to drive from his father and now works to help his family after moving to Marib from another city. ‘I work to support my family,’ Sasaga told the Turkish news agency Anadolu.

‘Usually my father drives a minibus and I do the same to help him and earn money. So far I haven't had any problems driving. Crowded streets and heavy traffic don't bother me’.

Mursi Muhammed Salih Zevid, also 13, works in passenger transport and said he had to learn to drive out of necessity. ‘I share my income with them. Even if the roads are busy, I have no problems,’ he said, because ‘I'm just trying to earn a living.’

Muhammed Ammar Mebhut Cehlen, 15, says his father is disabled. ‘Since I started driving, the income and quality of life of my family has improved,’ he says.

In recent days, the United Nations has also raised concerns about the plight of the population in Yemen, particularly women and children. ‘The crisis has had a disproportionate and devastating impact on women and girls. They have suffered discrimination and systematic exclusion for decades,’ Tom Fletcher, Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, told the UN Security Council.

‘It is a bleak picture,’ he continued, adding that some 9.6 million women and girls are in “dire need” of life-saving humanitarian assistance as they face “hunger, violence and a collapsing health system.” “There is no sign of progress for them,” the UN expert concluded.

At the same time, Yemen's maternal mortality rate is ‘the highest’ in the Middle East and 1.3 million pregnant women and new mothers are malnourished.

More than six million women and girls face ‘high risks’ of abuse and exploitation and 1.5 million girls in Yemen have no access to school.

For this reason the United Nations wants to strengthen aid programmes in the education sector too, trying to revive ‘a community already on the brink of the abyss’ and in which ‘women and children bear the greatest burden’.

Yemen plunged into civil war in 2014, which morphed into a regional conflict in March 2015 when Saudi Arabia and a coalition of Arab countries intervened.

So far, almost 400,000 people have died, including 10,000 children, in what the United Nations deems the “worst humanitarian crisis in the world,”  made more “devastating” by the COVID-19 outbreak.

At present, hunger haunts millions of people with children likely suffering the consequences for decades. Included are the more than three million internally displaced people who live in conditions of extreme poverty, hunger and epidemics of various kinds, not the least cholera.