(Beirut) – Forces linked with the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC), which governs the southern Yemen city of Aden, seized an independent women’s shelter on May 26, 2024, Human Rights Watch said today. The STC and its affiliated Southern Women’s Union threatened the independent Yemen Women’s Union staff and women sheltering there. Yemeni Archive also released an investigation today with similar findings.
“While the Southern Transitional Council rhetorically supports women’s rights, its actions have repeatedly shown that it is restricting civil society, including those working to support women,” said Niku Jafarnia, Yemen and Bahrain researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The Southern Transitional Council should take immediate measures to remove the Southern Women’s Union from the premises of the Yemen Women’s Union, which is one of the few safe spaces that women fleeing abuse can rely on.”
The raid is the latest in a series of STC actions that seek to replace independent institutions with entities it supports. The STC should cease its violations of women’s rights as well as its broader attacks on civil society.
The Yemen Women’s Union is one of the oldest civil society organizations dedicated to serving Yemeni women. It operates shelters throughout the country for survivors of gender-based violence, including women and children. The shelters provide mental, legal, social and economic support for the women. It is a vital resource, particularly in a country in which the law still restricts women’s freedoms, Human Rights Watch said.
For nearly a month, the attackers maintained full control over the Yemen Women’s Union offices and shelter in Aden. They prevented staff from caring for a sick boy in the shelter, and only allowed the Yemen Women’s Union staff to bring those in the shelter some limited food supplies, placing women and children in the shelter at risk. Though the staff were able to re-enter their offices on June 23, the STC demanded that they provide half of the building space to the government-affiliated Southern Women’s Union and remove the word “Yemen” from their name to signify that they only support women in Yemen’s south.
Human Rights Watch interviewed six people, including lawyers and others who are aware of the raid, and verified videos and photographs sent directly to researchers and found on social media platforms showing the raid. Human Rights Watch also reviewed official documents relevant to the seizure.
The STC is part of the internationally recognized Yemeni government’s coalition: the eight-member Presidential Leadership Council, which replaced former President Abdo Rabbu Mansour Hadi in 2022, and includes STC leaders. The STC, on its own, also maintains significant control in Aden as well as in several other governorates in southern Yemen.
Human Rights Watch asked the STC for comment. They replied on June 6 stating that the Southern Women’s Union is an independent organization, and that STC forces were not in control of the building. They added that if STC forces were there, it would be to secure the building as (is the case) with others. They also provided Human Rights Watch with a document from the Social Affairs Ministry stating that the Southern Women’s Union, which was established on January 6, 2024, during a women’s conference in Aden, is the official women’s union recognized by the Yemeni government. However, while the STC established this new women’s union, it rejected renewing the registration of the independent Yemen Women’s Union.
People interviewed said that the STC began harassing the Yemen Women’s Union in early May, refusing to renew its license, even though the Union had fulfilled the necessary requirements for renewal.
On May 12, representatives of the Southern Women’s Union demanded that the Yemen Women’s Union hand over its offices and exclusively serve women from the south and not those from “northern governorates,” even if they were living in Aden.
“We are a civil society organization,” a woman working with the Yemen Women’s Union said that she told the Southern Women’s Union. “We receive all women from everywhere, including some from Somalia and Ethiopia. We cannot turn away those seeking protection no matter where they are from.”
A woman working with the Yemen Women’s Union said that the next day, a building guard called the office to say that a group of women and men had stormed the office and replaced the Yemen Women’s Union sign with the Southern Women Union’s and raised a South Yemen flag, which is also the STC’s flag. Photographs shared on Facebook and X, formerly known as Twitter, on May 14 and verified by Human Rights Watch show a group of men and women carrying the Southern Women’s Union sign.
The Yemen Women’s Union contacted a woman in the office of the STC’s leader, Aidarous Al-Zabidi, asking the STC to recall their forces and order the Southern Women’s Union representatives to vacate the Yemen Women’s Union buildings. The woman they spoke with asked the armed men to withdraw, and they did.
However, on May 26, a group of men and women affiliated with the Southern Women’s Union stormed the office again. In one video, directly shared by an interviewee, a group of at least 40 women are seen outside the main gate. At least five women repeatedly pushed at the gate. Several people broke the main door of the office, disabled the cameras, and took over the office, a staff member said.
The people who raided the building were escorted by a military vehicle belonging to the STC’s Storm Brigade, said a person who was there and asked the soldiers herself. Human Rights Watch received two photographs from a witness who said they were taken on June 6 from inside the Yemen Women’s Union office. They show a tan-colored pickup truck with a heavy machine gun mounted in its bed, matching vehicles driven by the STC and the Yemeni military, parked next to a building. Human Rights Watch could not confirm to whom the vehicle belonged, but multiple people interviewed said that the STC is the only authority in Aden with armed forces and military vehicles.
“[The trespassers] insulted the women, questioned their honor, and threatened them with death,” a Yemen Women’s Union staff member said. “[The women] came to the shelter seeking protection, and instead, they were threatened with death and insulted. We are very concerned about them.”
Another video sent by the same source, shows three men using a hammer to try to break the lock on the main building’s door. Researchers could not establish when this video was recorded.
Human Rights Watch reviewed an official document dated May 26 from a public prosecutor in Aden addressed to the police station in Crater, the district of Aden where the Yemen Women’s Union office is located, ordering them to stop the attack, and send the attackers to the site where people are held during investigations. The Yemen Women’s Union lawyer said that she went to hand over the document to the Crater police station, which is under the STC’s authority, but that a police officer threw it on the ground, saying that the police did not recognize or accept these orders.
“We are living through a terrible time,” said a Yemen Women’s Union staff member, describing the conditions of the women and children who were trapped in the shelter. “We can’t sleep or do anything, we can’t go and visit them in the shelter.” She said that while sometimes employees have been able to drop off some food for the women sheltering there, those occupying the building did not allow them to bring medicine to one of the sheltered women’s sons who is sick, or allow the boy to leave for a hospital.
On June 23, the Yemen Women’s Union were able to reenter the building and continue working from their offices. However, staff members told Human Rights Watch that the Southern Women’s Union continues to occupy part of the building, based on STC directives to the Yemen Women’s Union that the building be shared.
This is not the first time the STC has seized the buildings of civil society organizations and other unaffiliated institutions. On February 28, 2023, STC-affiliated forces seized the headquarters of the Yemeni Journalists Syndicate. According to the Syndicate, the STC-backed Southern Media and Journalists’ Syndicate removed the Yemeni Journalists Syndicate’s sign from the building and replaced it with their own sign. In June 2021, STC-affiliated armed forces raided and seized control of the offices of Saba News Agency, the official news agency of the government of Yemen.
Other warring parties in Yemen, in particular the Houthis, have also repressed civil society in the country. Most recently, the Houthis have arbitrarily arrested and forcibly disappeared dozens of civil society and UN staff, apparently based on their employment.
“The STC and its controlled security institutions should respect the rule of law, return the Yemen Women Union building, and immediately cease their broader abuses against civil society,” Jafarnia said.
