The novel Coronavirus pandemic has been heightening the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis; with a lack of resources, rising child labor, and increasing forced child marriages, Yemen is reaching a “potential breaking point”, according to the U.N. refugee agency.

This past Tuesday, the U.N. refugee agency has said that it;s work within Yemen is in critical condition, consistently suffering blows from the spread of COVID-19, raging war, child Labour, and child marriage.

24 million people, or roughly 80% of Yemen’s population, are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance. This includes approximately 12 million children. 2 in 3 Yemenis cannot afford to buy food, there are over 1 million cases of cholera since 2018, and now there are 278 cases of Coronavirus. With statistics like those, international help is indispensable.

This last week, the UN announced that its health care system “has in effect collapsed”. Without proper healthcare systems to treat or detect the virus, it is now thought to be spreading throughout the country, which is why the United Nations has now appealed for urgent funding.

“We are reaching a potential breaking point in our programmes where if we don’t receive further funding soon, many of our programmes and particularly our cash assistance programmes to internally displaced Yemenis may have to stop,”

Charlie Yaxley, UNHCR spokesman, at a virtual briefing.

UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) currently provides cash assistance projects that benefit around 1 million people who have been internally displaced and now rely on said money to pay for medicine, shelter, food, and water.

Yaxley also stated that they have seen more and more families resorting to toxic coping mechanisms like begging, child labor, and marrying of children in exchange for survival.

Since March 2015, Yemen has been plagued with war, split between government backed by Saudi Arabia based in Aden, and the Houthi rebels backed by Iran in the north. There have been numerous efforts from the U.N. to ease the conflict and tension in the region.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs announced that of the $3.38 billion necessary for the 2020 Humanitarian Response Plan for Yemen, it had received around 15%, with the United States being the top donor.

With the humanitarian situation consistently worsening, child marriages and child labor are both reportedly on the rise. Families are resorting to many different methods of survival.

Child marriage in Yemen is driven by numerous factors. Armed conflict is a cause, with families marrying off their daughters as a source of income; the level of education also plays a key role, seeing as many families force girls to leave school at puberty to train them into wives. Family honor and gender norms are also notable causes, with girls, who are deemed inferior to boys, being forced into marriages to “preserve family honor”, and “protect them from engaging in shameful behavior”.

As for child labor, children in Yemen engage in some of the absolute worst forms of it. Many children are forced to participate in commercial sexual exploitation and armed conflict, as well as engaging in child labor in fishing, agricultural, and domestic work sectors.

There is sufficient reason to believe that these two could be on the rise. With child marriages into armed conflict, and child labor in numerous work sectors, families are giving up or exploiting their children as sources of income.

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Link to donate to Yemen:

https://give.unrefugees.org/200310hth_covid_p_3000?_ga=2.175718562.1867293427.1590710591-1633798376.1590710591

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Sources: