By Owen Daniels, Rafik Hariri
Center for the Middle East
On Saturday, December 7, 2014, a
small boat set out from the Horn of Africa bound for the Yemeni port of Mocha. Seventy
Ethiopians, hoping
to pass through the country in search of employment abroad, had anxiously
packed onto a trafficker’s vessel. As they neared their destination the weather
began to turn, and before long strong winds and rough waves capsized the boat.
Despite the valiant efforts of search and rescue teams, all the African
migrants aboard perished. Yemen’s interior ministry set about tracking down the
boat’s owner; unfortunately, this small step pinpoints only one symptom of a
larger illness. Human trafficking is a malaise endemic to Yemen that thrives on
political instability, official indifference, and low-level governmental
compliance. As the country has plunged into unrest caused by the recent
military activities of the Houthi group, migration and trafficking trends to
Yemen have been dangerously exacerbated.
Yemen is the gateway through which
many desperate migrants from the Horn of Africa pass to find work. African migrants
from Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, and Djibouti are drawn to the oil-rich Gulf
monarchies, and their motivation is not hard to see: Ethiopia’s annual GDP per capita of $498 USD was ninth lowest in
the world in 2013, and its east African neighbors fared only marginally better.
Migrants seek an escape from life under repressive regimes and the chance to earn remittances to support
loved ones back home. Driven by this combination of desperation and hope, 364,000 people headed east across the Red Sea between 2011 and
2014. But before they can seek employment, migrants face a host of obstacles
that many are unable to overcome.
Migrants who survive the harrowing trip from east Africa across the Red Sea are often
greeted by gunmen awaiting their arrival on shore, demanding payment for passage.
Others are held by government officials until they can be sold to traffickers
for bribes. Migrants who cannot pay their way out of traffickers’ clutches are
taken to torture camps like Haradh, just south of the Saudi border. Here they are
brutalized, raped, or sometimes killed while their families try to scrape together
a ransom payment. Migrants who survive the camps are left several unenviable
options. The poorest remain in Yemen to beg and seek work; others pay to be
smuggled past checkpoints by traffickers, who bribe the meagerly-paid border
guards. Some flee for the border on their own, and still others, resigned,
return to Africa.
Political unrest allows migrants
to make it into Yemen in larger numbers, giving traffickers opportunities for increased
hostage-taking and extortion. Yemen saw increased immigration rates beginning
in 2011 as Arab Spring protests forced former President Ali Abdullah Saleh out
of office and rose rapidly until 2013, when Saudi and Yemeni policy changes slowed the pace of migration. With help from international
organizations, Saudi Arabia repatriated nearly 200,000 undocumented African
migrants from 2013 to early 2014. In Yemen, the National Dialogue Conference that aimed to reshape the
country’s post-Saleh political scene was accompanied by stability and the
repatriation of nearly 8,000 undocumented migrants.
This was all before the Houthis
arrived on the scene. Beginning in July 2014, the Houthi group initiated a political and military campaign that
has spread outward from the north. Outsiders to Yemen’s political scene, the
Zaydi Muslim Houthis fought six wars against Saleh’s regime starting in 2004 and
participated in the Arab Spring protests. Under Hadi, the first and only President of Yemen
in the post-Saleh era, the Houthis have agitated for greater political
representation and against fuel subsidy cuts. The Houthis’ military campaign
that began against tribal and militia groups in the north culminated in their capture of
Yemen’s capital, Sana’a in September. Houthi fighters set up checkpoints,
seized state ministries, and dictated Hadi’s prime minister. Their unpopular
occupation of Sana’a and other cities has inspired protests from government officials and citizens alike,
and also sparked deadly clashes with al-Qaeda and tribesmen that threatens to
plunge the country into civil war. On top of all this, northern dysfunction has led to renewed protests in Yemen’s restive south, which
was once independent and views itself as better off without the north.
Houthi-driven chaos has
effectively cancelled out 2013’s migration reversals. From January to November
2014, 82,680 Africans reached Yemen. As of September an estimated 75% had been kidnapped and ransomed. RMMS, which
tracks migration from the Horn of Africa to Yemen, recorded its highest three month migration totals in the last seven years
from July to September. This period covers early Houthi agitation through the
capture of Sana’a, and excludes the group's escalation against al-Qaeda in
October and November. As the Houthis have tried to consolidate control over new
parts of the state after September 2014, the number of migrant arrivals
exceeded 33,000. Over 11,000 reached Yemen’s shores in November alone, a 447% increase from the same time last year, and at least 2,440
of these were taken hostage. Tragically but unsurprisingly, this has also been the deadliest year off Yemen’s coast: more migrants have died at sea
than in the previous three
years combined. The
number of deaths is currently over 240, which is remarkable given that
traffickers have a great interest in the survival of their future hostages.
The Houthi uprising has
overburdened the state’s security apparatus and largely overshadowed gradual
governmental progress against migrant trafficking. There are a number of steps Yemen’s government could take to bolster anti-trafficking practices, including raising public
awareness, increasing cooperation with Saudi Arabia, cracking down on corruption,
and improving holding facilities for migrants. However, with resources already
strained, devoting increased funding to combat trafficking and build
capacity will be incredibly difficult. This does not even account for the
internal trafficking of Yemeni citizens, especially women and children. Action on the part of the international community
is a must so long as Yemen remains internally unstable.
Until Yemen can get its own house in order and crack down on human trafficking, migrants to its shores will remain adrift on dangerous tides.
Photo courtesy of https://flic.kr/p/aLgPpv, Creative Commons
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