Social Inequality and Lack of Access to Basic Services

Extreme poverty and lack of state capacity negatively impact the ability of Yemeni citizens to access basic services. These are further restricted by severe social inequalities: between the rich and the poor; between urban and rural, as well as central and peripheral areas; between landless people, nomads and land owners; between different groups of migrants; between tribal and religious groups; and between genders (Stakeholder Consultation, United Nations Population Fund, 14 August, 2010). Since basic services include healthcare, education, social welfare and protection, these social inequalities have serious implications for maintaining poverty levels and prolonging uneven development conditions, which are a primary source of conflict and political unrest in Yemen. Pervasive social inequalities and poor service provision prevent marginalised groups from lifting themselves out of poverty by denying them various forms of social opportunity. As Rodrigo R. Soares asserts in his analysis of international differences in crime rates, social and economic inequality has proven to be one of the variables “most consistently related to crime rates”, particularly when it comes to “theft and contact crime”, as well as burglary (2002, p. 175). Yet, while healthcare and education are unevenly distributed across the country, social welfare and protection services are almost entirely absent everywhere, with unemployment benefits and child protection remaining the largest policy gap areas (Stakeholder Consultation, International Labour Organisation, 15 August, 2010, Interview Led by Sean Deely).

Yemen was ranked 133rd out of 169 countries in the 2010 Human Development Index (HDI). While it has shown some level of improvement in its development indicators over the past decade, rising from its 2007 position of 140, it continues to be undermined by poor healthcare, education and welfare service levels. In 2010, the HDI classified 32% of the country as being “undernourished”, which accounted for the greatest health risk in the country. Yet while the under-five mortality rate in Yemen was at 69 registered deaths for every 1,000 people that year, public health expenditure in the country accounted for only 1.5% of gross domestic product (GDP), while education represented 5.2%. This followed on from a prolonged period of deteriorating security, which saw the diversion of funds for public spending towards the development and supply of the country's military while the

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global economic crisis saw a significant reduction in donor aid to the country. In practice, it meant that hospitals and other healthcare providers were ill-equipped to handle the sheer volume of injuries and related cases generated by crackdowns against protesters in 2011, leading many mosques and other public buildings to double up as care givers for those in need. This trend is anticipated to have had the potential to reverse recent advances in health in Yemen, linked to the containment of various diseases, such as measles, tuberculosis and malaria. These are also affected by the uneven distribution of potable water across the country, which is known to heavily impact health and sanitation (Stakeholder Consultation, World Health Organisation, 15 August, 2010).

Figure 32 Yemeni girl works a vegetable garden in Sana'a

Although some advances have been made in public school systems, total school registration and student retention numbers remain incredibly low (Stakeholder Consultation, United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund, 15 August, 2010, Interview Led by David Connolly). Poor retention rates are linked to the reality that the education sector in Yemen has failed to attract quality professionals, leading to very poor levels of student engagement in the classroom (Stakeholder Consultation, Ministry of Education, 17 August, 2010). Extreme levels of poverty74 mean that many children are made to work to support their families rather than attend school.

Yemen's high fertility rate (another lead cause of poor general health levels and high child and maternal mortality rates), as well as the influx of foreign migrants from Iraq, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Somalia and other areas, have meant that the country's labour force has expanded considerably faster in recent years than the job market can accommodate. The Minister of Labour and Social Affairs noted in interview that he received 175,000 applicants for 1,000 new low-level positions created in 2009 to stem the impact of mass unemployment, a figure indicative of the severe

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According to the Central Statistical Organisation, unemployment rates rose from 16% in 2005 to 35% in 2008, before the global economic crisis also triggered the vast return of labour migrant to Yemeni soil, removing remittances as one of the country's economic support systems (2008). Poverty has since been on the increase.

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overcrowding of the Yemeni labour market (Stakeholder Consultation, 16 August, 2010). Travelling through Sana'a, it is easy to observe large groups of Yemeni men sitting by the side of the road, waiting for work, many of whom are qualified electricians, mechanics and traders, while women and children crowd around passing cars, begging for food and money.

Figure 33 Yemeni boy minds a stall in the centre of Sana'a

The World Bank estimates that every person in Yemen between the ages of 15 and 65 who is in employment actually supports at least four others who are not, meaning that employment is no longer a valid means of overcoming poverty, as salaries are often not sufficient to raise a single individual out of deprivation (2007). In practice, this means that, rather than attending school, young girls often stay home to help their families by attending to farms, collecting water and caring for younger siblings, while school-age boys go out in search of work (Stakeholder Consultation, United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund, 15 August, 2010, Interview Led by David Connolly). Despite these significant restrictions, Government efforts to lower the cost of education through subsidies – particularly for young girls who are often denied such services due to engrained gender inequalities – have succeeded in raising net enrolment rates, which, according to the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund, increased from 52.7% in 1990 to 75.3% in 2008 (2008, p. 3). Barakat et al write that these increases are attributable to parallel development projects, so that:

Water projects, for example, have allowed more girls to attend school by reducing one major labour burden in their lives. Consequently, the female to male ratio in basic education increased from 44.6 per cent in 1990 to ... 74.8 per cent in 2008, with evidence of increasing community awareness and acceptance of the importance of girls’ primary education among traditional communities. These rising levels of acceptance are also largely the product of a 2006 decree that eliminated user fees for girls in grades 1 - 6 and for boys in grades 1 - 3 in order to reduce the gender gap within the country. However, gender-specific education needs continue to be neglected so that health

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education and reproductive health education have been sidelined in schools, reflecting a discrepancy between policy and gender-based needs in Yemen (2011b, p. 32)

However, a parental preference for boys’ education remains across the country, with many girls dropping out of school early in order to marry and have children, with no legally set age limit for marriage in the country (Stakeholder Consultation, United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund, 14 August, 2010). Meanwhile boys’ education continues to be limited by the necessities of employment, whereby 10% of the known labour force in Yemen in 2009 was made up of predominantly male children, 12% of whom were aged between 6 and 14 years old (United Nations Development Project, 2010).