The American Center for Justice (ACJ) released a specialized qualitative report titled “Manufacturing Violence and Hatred,” documenting the objectives, curricula, and systematic human rights violations associated with the summer centers operated by the Houthi movement for school-age children and youth between 2017 and 2022 under the banner of “Education and Jihad”. Based on field investigations, on-site inspections, interviews with educators, academics, parents, and merchants across Sana’a, Dhamar, Al-Mahwit, Al-Hodeidah, Ibb, Saada, and Al-Jawf, and a rigorous forensic review of seven core instructional textbooks, the report exposes the operational mechanisms behind these camps.
The findings demonstrate that the Houthi group utilizes summer courses as a systematic conduit for military mobilization to replenish depleted combat ranks. In 2022 alone, the ACJ documented the recruitment of 701 children from summer centers into combat formations: 189 in Saada, 186 in Dhamar (with 85% under the age of 15), 119 in Sana’a, 111 in Amran, 42 in Al-Hodeidah, 35 in Al-Mahwit, and 19 in Ibb. The report records grave humanitarian consequences stemming from this indoctrination, detailing confirmed instances where children returned from camps exhibiting acute behavioral hostility, including parricide and physical violence against immediate family members who questioned loyalty to the group’s leadership. In multiple verified cases, recruited minors were deployed directly to active frontlines in Marib and Al-Jawf, where they were killed in combat or sustained catastrophic injuries resulting in permanent limb amputations, often without the prior knowledge or consent of their families.
Beyond child soldiering, the report details compound violations against educational institutions and the right to education. The Houthi authorities closed 118 established summer educational centers in Sana’a, raided and looted 89 others, and revoked licenses for teaching the Holy Quran in independent institutions and mosques. The group weaponized educational access by providing free curricula and tuition waivers exclusively to children attending sectarian summer camps, while imposing mandatory fees on the general public school population. Furthermore, the group deployed coercion to enforce ideological conformity in traditionally Shafi’i communities across Ibb and Al-Hodeidah, while subjecting commercial merchants in Sana’a, Dhamar, and Ibb to systematic financial extortion to fund the multibillion-rial expenses of running hundreds of open and closed military-style encampments.
Textual analysis of the 278 pages across seven instructional booklets confirms the systematic presence of content that glorifies death, sanctions sectarian violence, and incites hatred. Curricula for primary-level children incorporate phrases such as “I will slaughter you,” mandate the chanting of the group’s sectarian slogan, and frame non-adherents as hypocrites and enemies of faith, entirely omitting foundational concepts of civic coexistence, peace, and national identity.
Under international law, the compulsory conscription and recruitment of children under the age of 15 into armed forces or their use in hostilities constitute war crimes under Article 8(2)(e)(vii) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. These acts also stand in direct violation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict. The ACJ recommends that the Houthi group immediately shutter all closed and open summer camps, abolish curricula that promote hatred and militancy, adhere to its signed UN Action Plan on child recruitment, and redirect operational funds toward public school teacher salaries. The Center also urges the international community and the United Nations to exert decisive pressure to halt child mobilization and hold commanders implicated in the unlawful recruitment of children legally accountable.
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