Tihama- Tailor Omar Hussein, 80, from the city of Hodeidah in western Yemen, is busy weaving and repairing “mada’a” (weaving) threads for 15 hours a day, a profession that he has been subsisting for 60 years to provide a source of income for his family.
But the octogenarian says that the sales movement is witnessing a decline from what it was in the past; Because of the process of importing this product from India, which contributed to the decline in the purchase process from its shop.
The love of the profession, despite its troubles, is what called the weaver Saleh Hassan (48 years old) to continue the profession of knitting that he has been in for 30 years. , to collect what he earns at the end of the week to transfer it to his family in the north of the country.
The profession of knitting a quilt is not easy for Saleh Hassan; He says that the difficulties of this profession in recent times have been the high prices of leather that are used in weaving, and the poor marketing, which exacerbated the deterioration of work and the lack of demand for purchase.
The unemployment rate in Yemen rose to 65%, and the poverty rate exceeded 80%, according to the General Federation of Yemeni Trade Unions, and 10,900 workers were killed, while 19,498 workers were injured, in addition to the layoffs of thousands of workers, according to the Yemen Trade Union.
The young crowd the adults
The work of weaving in Tihama is not limited to adults only. Unemployment and poverty have prompted many children to leave school and join destitute knitting centers (weaving pieces of rugs) in order to make a living. For two years, Bashar Hani Al-Hatami, 10, has been working with his brother in a destitute sewing factory. His father is disabled due to illness and cannot work, so he and his other brother are forced to work in this profession because there is no source of income for the family.
Bashar tells Al Jazeera Net that he works in the shop from 7 am until noon, then goes to school, then returns again in the evening to work in the shop, and describes the hard and exhausting work, as he earns up to 10 dollars a day in order to provide for the needs of his family who rents a house including Equivalent to $40 a month.
Child labor
According to the Siaj Organization for the Protection of Children, the rates of child labor in Yemen have increased three times more than they were before the war, and Ahmed Al-Qurashi, head of the organization, attributes to Al Jazeera Net this rise to the economic deterioration in the country resulting from the war and the killing and injury of parents, as well as the loss of sources of income, the collapse of the currency, and the increasing Displacement rates for more than 4 million displaced people.
All these factors are behind millions of children’s early entry into the labor market, including the worst forms of child labour, recruitment and participation in armed conflict.
The child Abdul Rahman (11 years old) in the fourth grade works 8 hours a day to work in the knitting factory in Tihama, so that after two days, an average of 16 hours, he can accomplish only one needy, where he earns two dollars a day, with which he helps his family of 4 siblings, and works to organize his time Between working in the lab and studying to help his family save living expenses due to the high cost and the family’s lack of work.
The International Labor Organization says that the number of working children in Yemen exceeds 400,000 children, belonging to the age group of 10-14 years, while 1.4 million children working in Yemen are deprived of their most basic rights, which raises a state of emergency that requires international action to help reduce these phenomenon.
Details of the figures show a high prevalence of work among younger children, including 11% between 5-11 years, 28% for children between 12-14 years, and 39.1% for children between 15-17 years.
The survey also showed that more than half of child laborers perform dangerous work, while the overwhelming majority (95.6%) work in dangerous occupations.