Houthis impose severe restrictions on birth control methods in Yemen

Ahmed Adel

In order to compensate for the lack of militants in the ranks of the Houthis, the Iranian-backed militia has imposed severe restrictions on women’s access to birth control methods and ordered the change of the guidebook for their use, in conjunction with accelerated steps to change educational curricula and society’s ideology according to sectarian foundations that open the door to the existence of a generation of extremists and warns of long-term sectarian conflicts.

On Saturday, January 30, Houthi Minister of Health Taha al-Mutawakil stated the cancellation of the family planning guidelines in place for years and which was prepared with the contribution of international medical organizations. He will prepare another guide that is consistent with him saying that “they are the appropriate trends and policies,” which are the expressions used by the militia in fighting all aspects of civility and coexistence within Yemeni society.

Houthi health offices have placed strict restrictions on women’s access to birth control methods, including the husband’s prior consent to his wife’s use of this method, and consent is only achieved when the husband is present with her at the moment she requests it and after confirming the existence of the marriage contract. But if the husband is unable to attend, the wife is obliged to bring the husband’s approval, notarized, and placed in a special file that a Houthi security authority will receive after that to ensure the safety of payment procedures and time periods.

In the footsteps of the mullahs

Iran had taken a similar step, as Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei launched a fierce attack on family planning programs and birth control and said that it is a Western tradition, indicating that his country is facing the problem of an aging population if husbands continue the policy of not having more children. He called for increasing the population to at least 150 million, while his critics say it is an unjustified concern, especially since 70% of the country’s population, which exceeds 80 million, is under the age of thirty-five.

Earlier, the Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council in Iran launched a campaign to prevent birth control methods in order to secure military power, and published posters bearing the slogan “A decrease in the population equals a decrease in military strength.”

According to the Guardian, Iran previously prevented women from obtaining contraceptive methods and took steps to prevent women from undergoing surgeries aimed at permanently preventing pregnancy.

The British newspaper indicated that the Iranian authorities have imposed disciplinary measures on health workers who carry out operations aimed at permanently preventing pregnancy.

Transforming women into reproduction machines

The Guardian quoted Hassiba Sahraoui, Deputy Director of Amnesty International in the Middle East and North Africa, as saying, “The Iranian authorities are promoting a dangerous culture that strips women of their basic rights and depicts them as reproductive machines instead of being human beings with basic rights related to freedom of choice in relation to her body and her life.”

Sahraoui indicated that the state is interfering in people’s personal lives by seeking to consolidate the image of military and geopolitical power by increasing the birth rate at the expense of women’s basic rights.

It is noteworthy that the terrorist Houthi militia, which hinders the circulation of contraception for women, distributes it to its gunmen on the fronts in order to help reduce bleeding if they are injured, and this was revealed by a study by researcher Michael Knights, published in late 2020 by the Counter-Terrorism Center of the West Point Military Academy to combat terrorism and internal conflict in New York, entitled “The Houthi War Machine: From Guerrilla Warfare to State Capture”.

The study confirmed that the militia distributes contraceptive pills to men, and contraceptive capsules were found in different battle sites from which the Houthis would withdraw or were captured.