Inside the Militia Machine that Turns Children into Combatants
The Houthis didn’t just recruit children. They built a world where childhood itself was redefined as expendable.
A critical examination of how the Iranian-backed Houthi militia's recruitment of children in Yemen represents a fundamental perversion of social institutions and power structures
In 2017, I interviewed Mohammed, a 13-year-old child soldier recruited by the Houthi militia in Yemen. His story was never an isolated tragedy; it was a signal. Over the past eight years, the systematic militarization of children has only deepened, quietly normalized by political negotiations and diplomatic euphemisms. As the world once again turns its attention to Yemen with talk of "peace," it is important to confront what has been made invisible: the deliberate weaponization of an entire generation.
What we witness in Yemen is nothing less than the systematic conversion of children from subjects with inherent dignity into objects of military utility. The Houthi militia has not merely recruited children; it has fundamentally reconstructed childhood itself, transforming what should be a period of development and protection into one of exploitation and dispensability. This process penetrates the most fundamental social institutions, family, education, and community, corrupting their essential functions and repurposing them toward violence.
Children as Instruments in Ideological Warfare
On his first day as a soldier, 13-year-old Mohammed received items that grotesquely juxtaposed childhood and warfare: a gun, a hand grenade, an MP3 player with spare batteries, and a backpack of snacks. He recalled the camaraderie of training camp and the ideological songs they chanted: "Our determination is strong, and our enemy is flat on his stomach." Mohammed was told he was "fighting America's brute force in Yemen" – a narrative serving power interests entirely disconnected from his lived reality. Before his recruitment by the Houthi militia, Mohammed had never carried a weapon.
The Iran-backed Houthi militia operates as a modern embodiment of the mythological Pied Piper, leading children away from safety and into conflict zones. Since their overthrow of Abed Rabu Mansour Hadi's government in late 2014, the recruitment of child soldiers between 8 and 17 years has accelerated systematically throughout Yemen. In 2018, the Saudi-led coalition supporting Yemen's internationally recognized government handed over 27 captured child soldiers. In a country where 60% of the population is under 24, this represents not merely a humanitarian crisis but a calculated exploitation of demographic vulnerability.
The instrumentalization of children by the Houthis is not incidental but strategic. Children were deployed during their six wars with the Yemeni government (2004-2010) and have become increasingly central to their territorial expansion. Children provide tactical advantages: they navigate urban environments effectively, gather intelligence, and require fewer resources to maintain. The economic dimension is equally calculated – children receive monthly stipends of 20,000-30,000 Yemeni Riyal (approximately $100-$150)1, with survival bonuses distributed semi-annually. In Yemen's collapsing economy, this economic coercion leverages structural poverty as a recruitment mechanism.
Systemic Recruitment and Ideological Indoctrination
The procurement of child soldiers follows multiple paths: institutional recruitment in schools, abductions from public spaces, and formalized arrangements with tribal leaders. Some families wait months for children who never return or receive only death notifications. Tribal sheiks aligned with Houthi interests participate in organized recruitment days called "Nafeer," often held in schoolyards during class hours – a deliberate penetration of educational spaces with militaristic aims.
This systematic exploitation has been normalized within the militia's power structure. The Houthi Minister of Youth has publicly stated that "recruiting children is desirable when schools are not in session" – revealing how completely childhood has been reconceptualized as a military resource. When images of dead child soldiers generated public concern, Abdelmalek al-Houthi issued a decree in January 2018 prohibiting the publication of photographs showing deceased soldiers under 15 years old – an act of image management rather than child protection.
Manufacturing Consent Through Indoctrination
Interviews with former child soldiers reveal a sophisticated system designed to manufacture consent and ensure compliance. New recruits undergo a three to four-week "cultural tour" of religious indoctrination, typically in the northern Saada region. This program merges traditional Yemeni Zaydi doctrine with elements of Shia ideology, creating a syncretic religious framework that legitimizes the militia's actions. "They taught us about Fatima, the daughter of the prophet, and Ali, the cousin of the prophet, as important symbols we are fighting for," Mohammed explained.
The indoctrination process systematically demonizes opposing forces, portraying the Yemeni army and Arab Coalition as ISIS-affiliated extremists who torture captives. This manufactured threat creates a false binary where surrender becomes unthinkable, driving children to fight to the death rather than risk capture. This manipulation of reality serves to trap children within a closed ideological system where escape appears more dangerous than continued participation.
Combat training follows ideological preparation, with sessions frequently relocated due to airstrikes, often to school buildings, further militarizing educational spaces. Mohammed's experience fighting in multiple regions (Sirwah, East Taiz, Amran) within his first year demonstrates the rapid deployment of these child recruits to active combat zones. "I was lucky; I only have shrapnel wounds on my leg," he said – a statement revealing how thoroughly violence had been normalized in his worldview.
Pharmaceutical Control and Cultural Manipulation
Children's resistance is further undermined through the systematic provision of narcotics. Recruits receive high-quality Qat (a potent stimulant common in Yemen) and "Shamma" (chewing tobacco linked to oral cancer risk). These substances are complemented by battle songs ("Zwamel") played on issued MP3 players, creating a multisensory environment designed to suppress fear and critical thinking while manufacturing artificial courage. This chemical and cultural manipulation transforms children into reckless combatants dissociated from normal fear responses.
Educational Spaces as Recruitment Grounds
Most disturbing is how the militia has transformed schools from places of learning into recruitment centers. Houthi-affiliated teachers fill classrooms with propaganda posters declaring: "Victory is on the side of the righteous," and "I am a Yemeni child, suffering from injustice, and like all children in my country, I will answer the call to fight." This represents a comprehensive attempt to normalize child militarization across all social institutions.
The perversion of education in Houthi-controlled areas has only intensified since 2017. Schools have become central recruitment grounds, with militia representatives conducting field visits and recruitment campaigns in educational settings. In late 2023, a leading Houthi figure was filmed addressing students at a school in Amran governorate, telling them he was searching for students who condemned supporters of the 1962 Yemeni Revolution and who would protect the country's values.
The situation has reached such extremes that in 2017, the Minister of Youth and Sports in the Houthi government suggested on social media that schools could be closed and students directed to military service – an explicit acknowledgment of their view of education as merely instrumental to their military objectives. What we are witnessing is not merely the appropriation of educational spaces but their fundamental reconstruction – institutions meant to empower through knowledge becoming mechanisms for foreclosing possibilities and channeling youth toward predetermined military functions.
International Complicity and Media Silence
While the UN supports reintegration programs for 100 children in Aden, and Saudi Arabia has established a child protection unit (criticized by some as a propaganda effort), these interventions remain inadequate to the scale of the crisis. Najeeb al-Saidi, head of Wethaq Foundation, observes: "Unfortunately, there is no real interest in the phenomenon of child recruitment and the adoption of programs to rehabilitate children." This points to a broader failure of international systems to prioritize the psychological recovery of former child soldiers, with societal stigmatization further impeding rehabilitation efforts.
This failure extends beyond Yemen to implicate Western powers whose geopolitical and economic interests intersect with the conflict. The arms trade that sustains the war has created a perverse economic incentive structure where children's bodies become collateral in profitable international exchanges. Meanwhile, the major powers engaged in the region have consistently subordinated child protection to strategic objectives, rendering the exploitation of children a regrettable but acceptable externality of realpolitik calculations.
Equally troubling is the systematic media neglect that has accompanied this humanitarian catastrophe. When I attempted to publish Mohammed's story in 2018, major Western outlets – including the New York Times, Washington Post, and Foreign Policy – declined to run the piece despite its firsthand documentation of child exploitation. This editorial gatekeeping reflects not merely oversight but a structural pattern of information control that determines which suffering merits attention and which remains invisible. The consistent marginalization of Yemeni children's experiences in mainstream discourse represents not an absence of information but an active process of selective visibility – one that protects certain geopolitical narratives while obscuring their human costs.
The Administration of Death
What distinguishes the Houthis' use of child soldiers is not merely that children die in their service, but that this death is systematically organized, celebrated, and rendered useful. When I interviewed Mohammed, he described how children were given stipends that would transfer to their families upon death, creating a macabre economic incentive tied directly to their sacrifice. The militia does not merely accept casualties; it administers them – printing memorial posters for "martyred" children to display in neighborhoods, transforming their deaths into propaganda that glorifies further recruitment. Children become valuable not only for their service but for how their deaths can be harnessed. Most disturbing was discovering how thoroughly this machinery of managed mortality had been normalized. The language used by Houthi officials spoke not of protecting children but of the proper circumstances under which their deaths might be appropriately arranged – "desirable when schools are not in session." What we witness in Yemen is not simply war's collateral damage but a sophisticated system for determining which young lives are expendable, under what circumstances, and to what political end.
From Gaza to Marib: The Continued Exploitation
Most concerning is how the exploitation of children by the Houthis has continued unabated and even intensified in recent years. Far from ending after my 2017 interview with Mohammed, the practice has found new justifications and accelerated through recent regional developments. In 2022, despite signing an action plan with the UN to end child recruitment, the Houthis continued to enlist children in what they called "summer camps" – using educational facilities during school breaks for military indoctrination.
More recently, the Gaza conflict has provided the militia with a new rhetorical framework for recruitment. Since October 2023, the Houthis claim to have recruited thousands of new fighters, with activists reporting children as young as 13 among their ranks. As one female human rights activist in Sanaa observed: "While the main reason for families to send their children is their position supporting the Palestinian cause, Houthis offer salaries and food baskets for families of those who are willing to join them, which works well given the deteriorated humanitarian and economic situation."
This pattern reveals the adaptability of the Houthis' exploitation mechanisms, constantly finding new ideological justifications while maintaining the same underlying structure of child commodification. As one activist noted: "The Houthis make children believe that they will fight to liberate Palestine, but they end up sending them to [the front lines in] Marib and Taizz. Indeed, the Houthis' Gaza is Marib." This cynical manipulation represents a sophisticated form of ideological misdirection, using legitimate international concerns to facilitate local exploitation, revealing how even global humanitarian sentiment can be weaponized against the very children it should protect.
The Totalitarian Instrumentalization of Youth
Amnesty International's research led their Deputy Director of the Beirut regional office to conclude: "It is appalling that Houthi forces are taking children away from their parents and their homes, stripping them of their childhood to put them in the line of fire where they could die." Through systematic kidnapping, indoctrination, chemical manipulation, and propaganda, the Houthis have transformed Yemen's children into disposable military assets. The psychological trauma inflicted represents not merely individual suffering but a collective wound that will affect Yemeni society for generations unless the militia surrenders its weapons and returns to peaceful negotiation.
Reclaiming Childhood from Ideology
Mohammed has begun reconstructing his interrupted childhood. Now enrolled in school in Marib, he finds meaning in studying the Quran and mathematics. His expressed gratitude for survival reveals the complex psychological impact of his experiences: "I don't know how I am alive still, but it must be by the grace of my family's prayers." When questioned about his family's sectarian identity, his response – "They are neither really.... they are just civilians" – reveals perhaps the most profound insight of all: the artificial nature of the ideological divisions that facilitated his exploitation as a child soldier.
This article is based on field research conducted in 2017, including interviews with former child soldiers. Names have been changed to protect identities.
Author’s Note: I pitched this story to multiple outlets in 2018—the New York Times, Washington Post, Foreign Policy, and others—but none accepted it, as there was a venerable view of the militia at that time. A version of this appeared in 2020 with Inside Arabia, an outlet that no longer exists. I repackaged this piece and reposted it here to help preserve information that kept getting buried under the weight of our indifference to children's suffering in conflict zones.
This was the exchange rate in 2017-2018