[ Human Trafficking, Country-by-Country ]

YEMEN (special case) – Extracted in part from the U.S. State Dept 2023 TIP Report

Yemen remains a Special Case for the eighth consecutive year. The civil conflict and humanitarian crisis in Yemen continued during the reporting period, hindering both government and NGO efforts to address trafficking. Information on human trafficking in the country has been increasingly difficult to obtain since March 2015, when much of the Republic of Yemen Government (ROYG) took refuge in Riyadh following the takeover of Sana’a and the north by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. During the reporting period, the conflict parties agreed to a UN-brokered truce between April 2022 and October 2022, which provided an overall reduction in violence in the country. Although the truce was not formally renewed, its terms remained largely in effect through the end of the reporting period. In April 2022, ROYG President Hadi issued a presidential decree transferring his powers to an eight member Presidential Leadership Council (PLC). Despite these developments, the ROYG continued to exert limited control over the country, and most notably, did not control the Yemeni territory in the north where the majority of the population resided, including the capital, Sana’a; this lack of governance continued to hinder the ROYG from adequately combating and collecting data on trafficking during the reporting period. NGOs and international organizations reported vulnerable populations in Yemen were at increased risk of human trafficking due to the protracted armed conflict, civil unrest and lawlessness, and worsening economic conditions. During the reporting period, the Yemen Armed Forces (YAF) continued recruiting and using child soldiers. Migrant workers, especially women and children from the Horn of Africa who remained or arrived in Yemen during the reporting period, endured intensified violence, including sex trafficking, forced labor, physical and sexual abuse, and abduction for ransom. The international organizations and NGOs remaining in Yemen focused primarily on providing humanitarian assistance to the local population and lacked adequate resources and capacity to gather reliable data on human trafficking. The vast majority of Yemenis required all types of assistance and basic social services, as the national infrastructure had collapsed.

Trafficking Profile

As reported over the past five years, human traffickers exploit domestic and foreign victims in Yemen, and traffickers exploit victims from Yemen who reside abroad. The ongoing conflict, limited rule of law, economic degradation, pervasive corruption, and fractional territorial control have disrupted some trafficking patterns and exacerbated others. Prior to the conflict, Yemen was a transit point and destination for women and children, primarily from the Horn of Africa, who were exploited in sex trafficking and forced labor. Many Ethiopians and Somalis travel willingly and voluntarily to Yemen with the hope of employment in Gulf countries, particularly Saudi Arabia; traffickers exploit most of these migrants in forced labor and sex trafficking in transit countries, reportedly most often in Yemen. Although the UN-brokered truce between April 2022 and October 2022 and continued de-escalation reduced overall violence from the civil conflict, migrants transiting through Yemen – through consented smuggling – remain highly vulnerable to exploitation, including trafficking. Moreover, during the reporting period there continued to be reports of migrants subjected to sex trafficking, forced labor, physical and sexual abuse, abduction for ransom, and targeted shootings, including killings, by Saudi security forces at the Yemen-Saudi border. For example, one NGO report asserted during their journey female migrants are often exploited by their smugglers in sex trafficking with wealthy Yemeni men as clients, while other women and men who were unable to pay their smugglers to continue the journey were forced to work as domestic workers, in construction sites, or directly for smugglers – cooking, cleaning, and serving Khat ceremonies. In these instances, the smugglers collect the migrant’s wages, subjecting them to debt bondage. Finally, an NGO reported some migrants are subjected to forced criminality; including transporting weapons and drugs within Yemen and cross the border into Saudi Arabia without being able to continue migrating. Many migrants are transferred between different smuggler’s camps in Yemen in remote areas of Al Bayda, Ma’rib, Shabwah, and Mahrah governates; an international organization reported some of these camps hold up to 1,500 migrants – where they have no freedom of movement and are subjected to forced labor on khat plantations, as domestic workers, and at ports with no pay. In contrast to 2020 and 2021, migrant arrivals in Yemen during 2022 significantly increased, approaching pre-pandemic levels; an international organization reported 73,233 people arrived during the year, compared with 27,693 arrivals in 2021 and 37,535 arrivals in 2020. As in previous years, the majority of migrants were from Ethiopia and Somalia. Additionally, following an outbreak of conflict in Bossaso, Somalia in October 2022, an international organization noted a sharp increase of arrivals to Shabwah governorate in Yemen, directly across the Gulf of Aden; 100 percent of arrivals in Shabwah in November 2022 were from northeast Somalia, with 20 percent noting conflict as the main driver of movement out of Somalia.

In 2021, an international organization reported large groups of migrants stranded in traditional transit hubs due to border closures as well as impacts to internal migrant flows due to escalating military campaigns; an estimated 35,000 migrants remained stranded, living in overcrowded informal settlements, detained by smugglers and traffickers and subsequently forcibly transferred across the frontlines of the conflict during the year, facing heightened vulnerability to exploitation and trafficking. Although pandemic border closures were lifted and migrant arrivals significantly increased in 2022, an international organization reported at least 43,000 migrants remained stranded in Yemen, and reports of forcible transfer from northern to southern Yemen continued. The reporting period also continued to see a substantial flow of reverse migration of migrants who originated in the Horn of Africa, specifically Ethiopia, due to the protracted civil conflict and harsh conditions of irregular migration through Yemen. An international organization reported it repatriated 5,896 migrants, mostly from Ethiopia, in 2022; the Ethiopian government coordinated with an international organization to conduct nationality verification for migrants to support repatriation procedures during the year. Due to perilous migration conditions and their inability to reach humanitarian and protection assistance, some migrants sought to return home through irregular pathways by engaging with smugglers, putting them at further risk of exploitation. An international organization reported migrants who resort to return home independent of assistance – with the help of smugglers – are routinely forced to work for an indefinite period of time, contained in inadequate shelters, and deprived of food, water and other basis needs. In 2022, approximately 5,970 migrants returned to the Horn of Africa via smuggling boats.

In 2021, rights groups reported Saudi Arabia began to terminate or not renew contracts of Yemeni professionals in the country following a policy change that required businesses to limit the percentage of their workers from certain nationalities, including Yemen. Due to Saudi Arabia’s visa sponsorship system, workers who were terminated or unable to renew their contracts had to find another employer to act as a sponsor to avoid leaving the country or risked detainment and deportation if found to be residing illegally. Furthermore, Yemeni workers who chose to stay in Saudi Arabia without legal status increased their vulnerability to exploitation and trafficking. As the civil war in Yemen continued, Yemeni workers who were forced to return to Yemen because they could not find employment or were deported by Saudi authorities likely faced famine, extreme violence, and increased vulnerability to exploitation upon their return. In 2022, an international organization reported 67,737 Yemenis left Saudi Arabia, the majority of which were deported without travel documents.

Since then, start of the current conflict in late 2014, human rights organizations have reported all parties to the conflict continued their unlawful recruitment and use of child soldiers. Despite a six-month, UN-brokered truce and continued de-escalation during the reporting period, documentation of such cases remained challenging due to security threats against the monitors and communities of interest and continued access restrictions. Civil society organizations and media outlets assessed in the previous reporting period that traffickers increasingly targeted Yemeni children since the civil war commenced, and children were disproportionately affected by its protracted escalation.