The Houthi group recruits dozens of girls into the so-called Zainabiyat
Michigan - The American Center for Justice (ACJ) has followed with great concern the Houthi group’s recent recruitment of new girls and women in Yemen within what is known as Zainabiyat Battalions, the security female wing of the group. The Center stresses that this behavior shows the group’s insistence on expanding its repressive tools against its opponents in its areas of control.
Local sources reported that they had monitored movements by the Houthi group for days and efforts to train at least 90 girls in the capital, Sana’a and its countryside intensively in the use of weapons and some of the skills necessary to carry out military, hostile, and repressive missions to target women in areas under the group’s control.
By recruiting dozens of girls - according to locals - the Houthi group aims to increase the numbers of its female repression army, which will assume the tasks of suppressing Yemeni women who oppose the Houthi authority, pursuing them, assaulting them, arresting them, raiding their homes, and carrying out espionage and intelligence work, especially in places of women’s gatherings. Moreover, these new recruits will provide sectarian training sessions for female public-school students in Sana’a and its countryside, with the aim of attracting other girls to join these military formations.
The American Center for Justice (ACJ) believes that this Houthi trend towards increasing the number of women in what is known as the “Zainabiyat” comes in conjunction with the broad participation recorded by Yemeni women, especially in the celebrations of the September 26 Revolution last month, which witnessed a high turnout by women. Simultaneously, these celebrations witnessed a campaign of incitement and insults by loyalists to the Houthi group on social media.
The (ACJ) also confirms that the record of the Houthi group and its women’s apparatus, the “Zainabiyat,” is full of violations and dangerous practices against women, especially those detained in Houthi prisons. The Center also indicated that increasing the numbers of the women's apparatus would consequently mean an increase in the rate of oppression and violation against Yemeni women.
We at the American Center for Justice call upon the Houthi group to stop its violations against civilians, especially women, and to stop its practices that show the group’s true intention to continue its violations, stressing that the group will bear responsibility for the increasing rate of violations against women in their areas of control.