Seyaj Organization for Childhood Protection documented 124 child abduction cases during the previous year, out of more than 150 abduction incidents recorded in 2013, including 19 girls.
At the press conference organized by Seyaj to launch the report, the organization’s president Ahmed Al-Qurashi said the problem targets an extremely vulnerable group. He criticized the failure of the relevant authorities, including the Ministry of Interior and the government, to deal firmly with perpetrators. He also condemned the transformation of the former interior minister into a social mediator between abductors and the families of abducted children.
Al-Qurashi pointed to a recent case in which a child from Hadramout was abducted and taken to Shabwa in order to pressure his tribe over a financial debt. He criticized the formation of a presidential mediation committee and revealed that it had so far failed to secure the child’s release.
He noted that most child-abduction cases do not reach the courts properly, allowing perpetrators to escape punishment. He also criticized the waste of large amounts of local and international money in the field of childhood in Yemen on issues that are not truly important or effective.
He highlighted the culture of shame and stigma that leads to major underreporting of the abduction of girls, even though such cases are numerous, and referred to incidents where recovered girls were later killed by their own families without any legal action being taken.
He called on families to report the abduction of their children and urged security institutions to perform their responsibilities to curb the phenomenon. He also stressed the need for coordination with Saudi Arabia to address the trafficking of abducted children across the border, noting that such crimes often involve Saudi funding and the transfer of victims to Saudi territory.
The conference also included testimony and stories from children who had been abducted and later released. Many cases involved abductions in central Sana’a, near or inside schools, over tribal revenge, property disputes, financial conflicts, or demands for prisoner release. In many cases, the crimes were settled tribally rather than judicially, with the Ministry of Interior acting as a social mediator. Some perpetrators, the report noted, belonged to the army or security units.
The report distinguished between two main motives behind child abductions: purely criminal motives, such as rape and murder, and exploitation-related motives, including ransom demands or forcing families to make concessions. It also pointed out that many victims receive no psychosocial care, legal support, advocacy, or media attention, leaving justice and the rule of law absent for many child victims of abduction.
