UN pays Yemen teacher wages as millions out of school
The United Nations children’s fund is paying some
100,000 teachers in Yemen, the UN said Sunday, as two million children go
without education in the war-torn country.
UNICEF has disbursed the equivalent of $50 per month
to more than 97,000 eligible teachers and school staff, and aims to increase
that figure to 136,000.
The UN estimates that out of seven million
school-age children in Yemen over two million are not being educated as
infrastructure has been destroyed or repurposed to house those displaced by the
four-year conflict. Salaries for teachers were suspended in 2016 as the war
between the country’s rebels and a government backed by a Saudi-led alliance
brought the economy to a halt.
Schools in some areas have since reopened. “The
situation of Yemen’s education sector is daunting,” said Geert Cappelaere,
UNICEF’s regional director for the Middle East and North Africa.
“Without a regular salary and due to the conflict
and the ongoing economic crisis, teachers have been unable to commute to their
schools or had to look for other livelihood opportunities to sustain their
families.” Rights groups have warned the loss of education poses a major threat
to the well-being of children, who are at increased risk of being recruited into
militias, forced into labour or married off young.
Yemen’s Huthi rebels, linked to Iran, in 2014 drove
the government out of the capital Sanaa and south into Aden, hometown of
beleaguered President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi.
