Press release for immediate publication: 24 May 2026.
Seyaj Organization for Childhood Protection sent urgent and independent legal memoranda and rights complaints to the Chairman of the Presidential Leadership Council, the Prime Minister, the Minister of Interior, and the Attorney General, calling for decisive sovereign and legal measures to dismantle organized networks of sexual exploitation and blackmail targeting children and women in Aden.
The organization welcomed the rapid response shown by the Office of the Presidency, the Attorney General, and the Minister of Interior to its previous report dated 22 May 2026, but stressed that the seriousness of the field evidence and recent rights indicators required a higher level of institutional action to protect victims and preserve the dignity of society.
Seyaj said that documented information and repeated testimonies received by its legal departments point to grave abuses that go beyond ordinary criminal offences and amount to serious crimes against humanity and childhood. It added that these violations are managed through organized and financed networks of entrapment and human trafficking with logistical capacities that enable them to penetrate society and target the most vulnerable groups, including underage girls, boys, women, and adolescents.
In its letters, Seyaj said that available field indicators prove the existence of collusion and direct supervision by some influential political and security officials in Aden, who used their public positions and authority to provide cover and protection to perpetrators, ensure their impunity, and issue unlawful orders for their release.
Based on constitutional, legal, and moral responsibility, Seyaj set out three urgent demands: the immediate dismissal of security leaders shown to be negligent or complicit; public criminal investigations and prosecutions for all those involved, whether as direct perpetrators or as facilitators and protectors; and the formation of an independent national investigation committee with broad civil society participation to dismantle these networks and track and cut off their sources of funding.
Seyaj warned that allowing complicit or incapable officials to remain in office after this formal report transfers legal and political responsibility directly to the highest executive and security authorities, and stressed that delaying firm and public action transforms the matter from administrative negligence into full criminal and political partnership in the abuse.
The organization noted that it also sent copies of the memoranda and evidentiary files to the Supreme National Authority for Combating Corruption, the Ministry of Human Rights, and the Supreme Judicial Council to ensure institutional and judicial oversight in the protection of children.
