Life stages in Yemen

Yemen has no single national authority that manages all life-stage needs. The Civil Registration Authority, education authorities, the Ministry of Health and Population, the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labour, local authorities, and structures run by the Government of Yemen (GoY) or de facto authorities (DFA) each handle different services. Institutions, procedures, fees and availability can differ between areas, so a service that exists in one governorate may not be available in another. A child is generally a person under 18 under Child Rights Act No. 45/2002. Team Tamkeen's National Action Plan 2025–2030 uses ages 15 to 24 for youth and aims to reach 2 million young people by 2030, but the plan applies to GoY areas and is not a nationwide service system. A personal identity card can be obtained from age 16 and supports identity and administrative access; it does not automatically establish full legal adulthood. Yemen has no consistently documented national threshold for adulthood or older age. Birth registration creates the civil record used for later access to school and administrative services. Births should be reported to the Civil Registration Directorate within 60 days, but only 29.4% of children under five had been registered in the 2022–2023 MICS; the rate was 52% in urban areas and 20.8% in rural areas. Costs and processing times are not reliably standardized nationwide. UNICEF and partner registration campaigns provide a functional alternative in some areas; a 2022 campaign reached 54,784 children and adults across 16 governorates. Displacement and lost documents can make later registration or replacement more difficult. Education does not follow one uniform system. Around 3.7 million children aged 5 to 17 were outside school in 2025, and 6.2 million children needed education support. The 2022–2023 MICS recorded 25% of basic-school-age children and 53% of upper-secondary-age children outside school; completion rates were 53% for basic education and 37% for upper secondary education. Formal schools may be combined with non-formal education, accelerated learning programmes, remedial classes, literacy and numeracy courses, temporary learning spaces or re-entry support. Conflict, displacement, distance, insecurity, missing documents, poverty, barriers affecting girls and limited disability access can interrupt these options. A child does not automatically receive a school place. The transition from learning to earning is addressed by youth initiatives that combine life skills, vocational and economic empowerment, inclusion, civic action, peacebuilding, resilience, health and well-being. These opportunities are not available nationwide and are concentrated particularly in GoY areas. Rural and displaced young people, girls and young people with disabilities often face additional barriers. The legal minimum working age is generally 14, and 15 for industrial work, under Yemen's ratification of ILO Convention No. 138. The 2022–2023 MICS found child labour among 16% of children aged 5 to 17, rising to 19% in rural areas compared with 7% in urban areas; 14% performed hazardous work. Work is often informal or family-based, and there is no reliably uniform school-to-work transition. UNICEF reported a strong link between school dropout and child labour in 2025. Family-related transitions can expose children and young women to early marriage, pregnancy, school interruption and reduced access to maternal care. Yemen has no codified statutory minimum marriage age that applies uniformly nationwide. Child marriage means marriage before age 18; among women aged 20 to 24, the MICS found that 30% had married before 18, including 6% before 15 and 23% between ages 15 and 17. Support may include legal, medical, psychological, shelter, cash and economic services through UNFPA, UN Women, UNICEF and NGO partners, the Yemen Women Union and gender-based violence case management. There is no nationwide state referral chain, and availability depends on location, safety and funding. Conflict and displacement can disrupt several life stages at once. In 2025, Yemen had about 4.5 million internally displaced people (IDPs), 7.4 million children needing protection services and 6.2 million children needing education support. Risks include family separation, lost documents, child marriage, child labour, gender-based violence, recruitment by armed groups, mental-health strain and explosive remnants of war. Child-protection partners, UNICEF, Save the Children, local authorities and NGOs may provide case management, family tracing and reunification, referrals, mental health and psychosocial support, child-friendly spaces and learning spaces. These are humanitarian services rather than permanent universal entitlements. Support for older people and adults who need help with daily activities is mainly informal and fragmented. Yemen has no statutory public long-term-care system documented by the ILO for 2021, and no reliably established nationwide system of care grades, care allowances, pensions or residential, day or home-care services. Family and community networks provide the main support, with primary health care, disability-inclusive services, rehabilitation, assistive technology and NGO or humanitarian referrals offering functional alternatives. The WHO Yemen Country Cooperation Strategy for 2024–2025 identifies integration of older people into primary health care through the ICOPE approach as a development goal, not as a fully established nationwide entitlement. The Social Welfare Fund (SWF) is a poverty- and household-based programme, not an age- or care-specific universal benefit. Its planned target under the World Bank ESPECRP was about 500,000 families, or 3.5 million people, with a payment equivalent to 16% of the Minimum Food Basket: USD 200 per year, USD 50 per quarter or about USD 16.70 per month. Payments and financing remain volatile, and the 2023 benefit was about 9% of the Minimum Food Basket; beneficiary lists excluded some vulnerable and newly poor households. Access depends on targeting and registration rather than arising automatically from age or care needs. The practical contact point therefore depends on the problem: civil registration offices for birth and identity records, education authorities or learning providers for school access, health authorities and primary health-care facilities for health-related dependency, social-affairs structures for SWF questions, and local or humanitarian organisations for protection, displacement, disability and family-support referrals. Formal rights, programme eligibility, informal family support and humanitarian assistance should be kept distinct because they have different responsible bodies, coverage, costs and continuity.