UN Trades Yemeni Children for Saudi Money

In the United Nations dictionaries, the children of Yemen have no value compared to the money the organization receives from the Saudi regime.

Despite the UN finding that the coalition was responsible for the killing and maiming of 222 children in Yemen in 2019, it did not include the Saudi regime in the list of shame for violators of children’s rights in the world for this year, which sparked a wave of widespread criticism inside and outside Yemen, accusing the organization of violating its covenants and laws In compliance with Saudi threats.

Jo Becker, Human Rights Watch’s children’s rights advocacy director, accused the US Secretary-General Antonio Guterres of adding a new level of shame to his ‘list of shame’ by removing the Saudi-led coalition from a global blacklist of parties whose actions have harmed children in conflict and ignoring the UN’s own evidence of continued grave violations against children.”

Adrianne Lapar, director of Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict, an international advocacy group, said that by removing the Saudi-led coalition, which also includes the United Arab Emirates, “the secretary-general sends the message that powerful actors can get away with killing children.”

She called for an independent and transparent assessment of the process of de-listing the coalition, “to ensure that all violators are held to the same standard, no matter who they or their friends are.”

It is not known what progress Saudi Arabia has made in protecting children in Yemen over the past year, to be removed from the list of shame. The UN resolution was issued as the Saudi-led aggression launched an airstrike  struck a vehicle carrying civilians in northern Yemen on Monday, killing 13 people, including four children.

Although Saudi Arabia has succeeded in removing its name and its allies from the list of shame by using the threat weapon and employing American and non-American lobbies to exert pressure on the Secretary-General and some of his aides, this cannot exclude it from full responsibility for killing 3,742 Yemeni children and wounding 3,592 others since the beginning of its war on Yemen in March 2015.