UN Panel of Experts reveals the Houthis’ recruitment of children and teenage girls to work in their ranks

The United Nations-backed team of experts revealed on Wednesday that the Iranian-backed Houthi militia has recruited children and teenage girls to work in its ranks.

The team of experts has found evidence that Houthi rebels in Yemen have recruited nearly thirty girls, some of whom are said to be survivors of sexual violence as spies, paramedics, guards and members of an all-female force.

The results came in the third and final report by the “Group of Eminent Experts” commissioned by the Human Rights Council to investigate alleged human rights violations by all parties in the war since September 2014. The devastating conflict in the poorest country in the Arab world resulted in what the United Nations describes as the largest humanitarian crisis in the world.

The report said: “The parties to the conflict continue not to show any consideration to international law or to the life, dignity and rights of the Yemeni people, while third-party countries helped perpetuate the conflict by continuing to supply the parties with weapons,” according to the Associated Press.

The report, which is based on more than 400 novels and focuses mainly on the period from July 2019 to June of this year, sheds light on how a generation of Yemeni children “suffered immeasurable damage through child recruitment, abuse and denial of their most basic human rights”.