suwandi-tan
On a quiet morning on the outskirts of Taiz, while students in nearby classrooms were preparing for their midday break, 11-year-old Hasnaa Jaber was walking across deserted farmland searching for discarded plastic bottles. For the young girl, the start of the school day is marked not by textbooks or morning assemblies, but by scouring the dirt for recyclable scrap.
Hasnaa and her family reside in an informal settlement for displaced persons outside the city, having fled their home during Yemen’s protracted conflict that has spanned more than a decade. Rather than pursuing an education, Hasnaa is forced to work every day alongside her relatives in order to help her household secure the bare necessities for survival.
Before economic hardship derailed her ambitions, Hasnaa completed her studies through the third grade. She harbored dreams of one day becoming a teacher, but rising financial pressures forced her and her two older brothers to abandon their schooling so they could assist their father in generating daily income.
When the new academic term commenced on August 30 across government-held territories in Yemen, Hasnaa was among the vast number of children absent from school desks. According to estimates from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), an estimated 3.2 million children in Yemen are currently out of school, a dramatic rise from the 1.8 million recorded when the conflict began in 2015.
The grueling routine of gathering plastic yields Hasnaa approximately 1,500 Yemeni rials—roughly equivalent to one U.S. dollar—each day when sold to local scrap dealers. While modest, the sum is a vital lifeline for her displaced family as they struggle to afford basic food rations.
Within the family of five children, only the youngest sibling currently attends school. Her enrollment is not a matter of privilege, but of circumstance: she remains simply too small to perform manual labor, such as searching for recyclables or washing vehicles on the streets.
Hasnaa and her brothers recently asked their father if they could re-enroll for the current academic session. While pleased by their desire to learn, the family patriarch had to decline their plea due to the severe ongoing battle to put food on the table, offering instead a promise that they might resume their studies next year.
The emotional toll of leaving school has reshaped Hasnaa’s social life. She finds herself alienated from former classmates who continue to study, noting that enrolled peers often look down on child laborers. Consequently, she spends her time with other out-of-school youths who share similar daily struggles, while holding on to the hope of eventually returning to class and realizing her teaching ambitions.
Her father, 35-year-old Jaber Ali, bears the burden of these difficult choices. Having escaped front-line fighting near Taiz eight years ago, Ali never had the opportunity to receive a formal education himself and had strongly wished for a different future for his offspring.
For years, Ali managed to earn enough from washing vehicles to keep his older children in the classroom. However, over the past two years, severe economic deterioration and surging living costs have drastically eroded his purchasing power, leaving his earnings insufficient even for basic food supplies.
Beyond the cost of food, the secondary expenses associated with formal schooling—such as notebooks, stationery, and daily travel or supplies—have placed education entirely out of reach for the struggling household.
Faced with an unbearable dilemma, Ali felt compelled to prioritize physical survival over academic development. He explained that his choice was stark: either allow his children to continue their schooling and face severe hunger, or have them work to ensure the family eats.
To protect his children's morale, Ali deliberately frames their labor as a temporary interruption. He actively avoids telling them that their education is permanently lost, continually encouraging them and holding out hope that an improvement in household circumstances will allow them to return to school soon.
The family’s ordeal reflects a massive systemic collapse documented by international agencies. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in its Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan, nearly 6.6 million children across Yemen require educational assistance this year, encompassing both those already out of school and enrolled pupils confronting extreme hardship, poverty, and crumbling infrastructure.
Educational specialist Ammar al-Sharjabi, who has collaborated with education ministries in both Aden and Sanaa, warned that widespread dropouts will have catastrophic consequences. He noted that leaving school deprives youth of their fundamental rights, pushes them into early manual labor, and damages long-term employment prospects, while societally fueling higher rates of illiteracy, enduring poverty, and economic stagnation.
An official from the Ministry of Education in Aden, speaking anonymously, acknowledged the severity of the crisis but stressed that the issue stems directly from broader economic collapse rather than school-level administrative shortcomings. With the nation's conflict escalating sharply in recent weeks following years of fragile calm, authorities face enormous barriers in assisting vulnerable households, leaving millions of children trapped between the need to eat and the right to learn.
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