The Yemen Justice Network (YJN) is a coalition of Yemeni and international civil society organizations, working together to advance justice and reconciliation within Yemen’s peace process. The YJN seeks to promote transitional justice as a pathway to sustainable peace by addressing victims’ grievances, ensuring effective representation in political and peace dialogues, rebuilding trust in state institutions, and laying the foundations for long-term stability in Yemen.

The Yemen Justice Network (YJN) welcomes the opportunity to contribute input on Yemen for inclusion in the upcoming thematic report of the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) on enforced disappearances and memorialization.

The YJN is a coalition of Yemeni and international civil society organizations working together to advance justice and reconciliation within Yemen’s peace process. Formed in 2022 and institutionalized in 2025, the YJN co-launched “The Yemen Declaration for Justice and Reconciliation” with partner civil society organizations, expressing a collective commitment to addressing widespread rights abuses in Yemen grounded in victim-centeredness. Among these abuses – including historic and ongoing grievances – the YJN has called for any post-conflict justice process in Yemen to address enforced disappearances and abductions, as well as arbitrary detentions and violations of fair trial rights.

Enforced disappearance in Yemen dates back decades. A report by the WGEID concerning a visit to Yemen in August 1998 refers to “the pending cases of enforced disappearances which occurred as a result of the civil war in January 1986 in the former People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen”. Since the start of the conflict in 2014, Yemeni civil society organizations have increased the documentation of cases of enforced disappearances committed by all sides to the conflict in Yemen. Between 2014 and 2023, some 1,168 cases of enforced disappearance perpetrated by parties to the armed conflict in Yemen were documented although an incommensurable higher number of persons are believed to have disappeared.

Despite the intensification of international efforts vis-à-vis the issue of missing persons – which includes the adoption by the Security Council of its landmark resolution in 2019 about missing persons in armed conflict – these have not produced any tangible results for the Yemeni context. Human rights in Yemen – including the issue of missing persons – suffers from a severe lack of international attention. The UN Group of Eminent Experts on Yemen – the only international mechanism reporting on enforced disappearances and other international law violations – ceased its activities in 2021 after the Human Rights Council rejected a resolution to renew its mandate. The last interactive dialogue on human rights in Yemen took place in February 2021. Human Rights Council activities in Yemen mainly focus on technical cooperation in the field of human rights. Whilst technical cooperation is very important for the promotion of human rights in Yemen, it is clearly insufficient given the egregious human rights situation in the country. This point was again clearly made at the 60th session of the Human Rights Council (September 2025) including by representatives of international (non-governmental) organizations, such as the European Union, Human Rights Watch and the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies.

Enforced disappearances in Yemen committed by all parties to the conflict have escalated since 2014. One of the most common patterns of violation reported by Yemeni CSO and international organizations include the arbitrary arrest of individuals in unofficial places of detention. Detainees in this situation are often kept incommunicado for indefinite periods of time which in many instances yield no positive resolution since the whereabouts of the person are never to be found. Yemeni and international organizations have also highlighted patterns of torture and other forms of degrading and ill-treatment – namely sexual violence – that are perpetrated against victims of enforced disappearance including women.

Civil society organizations have denounced enforced disappearances as tools of control and retaliation, as well as political bargaining such as in the case of prisoner exchanges, amid weak oversight and impunity. Yemeni Archive, a digital documentation, archiving and memorialization initiative member of the YJN, has described how enforced disappearances have “shocked Yemeni society and eroded trust in the state.”

In this very bleak context, memorialization efforts have emerged as essential coping mechanisms for families and communities seeking to preserve the memory of the disappeared and to clarify their fate and whereabouts. However, these efforts face severe challenges, including restrictions on public gatherings, harassment, denial of recognition and politicization of remembrance. Despite these obstacles, memorialization remains critical to resisting erasure, preserving evidence and strengthening efforts towards truth, accountability and prevention.

This submission is organized into four key sections that correspond to the structure outlined by the WGEID for this call for inputs, namely that suggested for Part 3 “Challenges and legal protection for persons, civil society, memorials and memorialization initiatives: addressing threats and safeguarding commemorative efforts”. The submission also includes a section containing recommendations that outlines concrete steps that can be taken by the WGEID based on the options available to Yemeni CSO to support memorialization initiatives in relation to enforced disappearances.

Read the full submission:

2026 April Submitted Analysis YJN