The American Center for Justice (ACJ) issued last Sunday, its human rights report on Hajjah Governorate: Under the titles Violated Freedoms and Confiscation Rights, the ACJ issued a report through which monitored and documented human rights violations committed in the Governorate from January 2015 to December 2021.

Latifa Jamil, chairwoman of the American Center for Justice (ACJ), stated that the center aims, through this report, to show the extent of violations committed against civilians in the governorate and to inform local and international public opinion about the human rights situation in the governorate throughout the reporting period, as well as work to reduce the occurrence of these violations, the call for holding human rights violators accountable and imparting justice to the victims.

For his part, attorney Abdul Rahman Barman, executive director of the ACJ, indicated that the report was prepared by a group of qualified and trained monitors based on accurate data collected through scientific and methodological monitoring and documentation process, where they conducted a series of field visits, inspections and meetings in addition to conducting sessions hearing from many victims, their relatives and eyewitnesses in 31 directorates in the governorate.

According to the report, the field team documented the Houthi militia committing 7 cases of abducting, 6 abortions, 3 cases of risky childbirth (in the open), 4 cases of beatings with rifle butts and sticks, and 96 cases of looting of personal savings.

Under the name of zakat, the Houthi militia collected funds estimated at one billion and 955 million and 135 thousand riyals for eight months, from January until the end of August 2021.

The ACJ team documented that the Houthi militia recruited 5,974 children under the age of fifteen and sent them to the battlefronts, 674 of whom were killed.

Among what was mentioned in the field monitoring, 15 women were killed by the Houthi militia, 26 injured, including 20 as a result of indiscriminate shelling, 4 as a result of gunfire and two as a result of mine explosions.

The monitoring team additionally documented the denial of schooling to 37,623 students in all educational levels in all directorates of the governorate.

The report showed that the most prominent violations suffered by civilians in Hajjah were as follows: The right to life, bodily integrity, and liberty, destruction and looting of private and public property, violations of the rights of children and women, as well as the right to education and other violations.

With regard to arbitrary arrests, the report documented 2,507 cases of abducting committed by the Houthi militia in all directorates of the governorate, including 1,167 workers, 267 educators, 570 students, 236 soldiers, 49 merchants, 76 employees, 56 dignitaries, 7 women and 57 children.

The ACJ has called on the Houthi militia to immediately release the 152 detainees from Hajjah Governorate, reveal the fate of 9 forcibly disappeared persons, and enable their families to visit them.