On his international day, the Yemeni teacher lives in a tragic financial situation that has exceeded levels of suffering and pain

The Yemeni Teachers Syndicate said that the Yemeni teacher has been living for 9 years in a tragic financial situation that has exceeded the levels of suffering and pain, calling on the international community to exert pressure on the Houthi group to restore the payment of all salaries that teachers were deprived of in the areas under its control, retroactively and on an ongoing basis.

The union added in a statement on the occasion of World Teachers' Day (October 5), which falls today, "While the world celebrates Teachers' Day, the Yemeni teacher, unfortunately, has been living for 9 years in a tragic financial situation in which the levels of suffering and pain have not stopped at the teacher alone, but have also extended to hundreds of thousands of families they support, who have crossed the poverty line to the grave."

The union confirmed, "Today, teachers and members of the educational and teaching field are celebrating. Most of them live lives divided between exile, prisons and cemeteries. Those who are destined to live practice their sacred profession deprived of their most basic rights, which is a monthly salary."

In this context, the union explained that the teacher does not receive his salary at all in the areas controlled by the Houthis, and if half of the meager salary is paid, it is at irregular times, and three months or more may pass and the teacher lives on suffering and pain, and despite that, he continues to perform his duty in raising and educating the youth, believing in the national and humanitarian duty and keenness on the continuity of educational life in light of the catastrophic situation that has befallen Yemen and the crisis that has ravaged the teacher’s legitimate rights, which are guaranteed by the constitution, the system, local and international law, and international covenants and charters in times of peace and war.

She continued, "As for the situation of the teacher in the areas controlled by the legitimate government, even if he is paid a full and regular salary, it does not meet the need due to the deterioration of the currency and the weak purchasing power of the Yemeni riyal."

The union called on the international community, the global conscience within it, the United Nations, and relevant human rights and humanitarian organizations to exert all forms of pressure on the group controlling Sana’a (the Houthis) to quickly pay the salaries of teachers and members of the education sector in accordance with international law, which they have been deprived of for nine years, and to reinstate all teachers, male and female, whose names were removed from the payroll and who were deprived of their jobs without any legal justification, and to pay their full dues retroactively and on an ongoing basis.”

The union called on the legitimate state authorities to care for and provide care for teachers in all parts of the country, and to adopt a salary that provides them with a decent human life so that they can face the specter of hunger and poverty that surrounds them and their families, and so that they can perform their educational and teaching duties more positively, achieving educational and teaching goals and noble values. It also called for the rapid disbursement of the dues of displaced male and female teachers.

At the end of its statement, the union stressed the need to release the kidnapped members of the education sector, especially those kidnapped in the prisons of the de facto authority controlling Sana'a (the Houthis) who have been languishing in its prisons for nine years, headed by the prominent unionist, Mr. Saad Al-Nazili, the head of the teachers' union in the capital, in addition to those who were recently kidnapped coinciding with the Yemeni people's celebrations of the sixty-second anniversary of the September 26 Revolution because they expressed their joy on this immortal occasion in the hearts of all Yemenis.