Disputes - international:
Saudi Arabia has reinforced its concrete-filled security barrier along sections of the fully demarcated border with Yemen to stem illegal cross-border activities

Refugees and internally displaced persons:
refugees (country of origin): 253,215 (Somalia); 13,643 (Ethiopia) (includes asylum seekers) (2015)
IDPs: 2,509,068 (conflict in Sa'ada Governorate; clashes between AQAP and government forces) (2015)

Trafficking in persons:
current situation: Yemen is a source and, to a lesser extent, transit and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to forced labor and women and children subjected to sex trafficking; some Yemeni children, mostly boys, migrate to Yemeni cities or across the border to Saudi Arabia and, less frequently Oman, where they end up as beggars, prostitutes, or forced laborers in domestic service or small shops; other Yemeni children were recruited as combatants or checkpoint guards by armed groups and continue to be used in the government’s military forces; Yemen is also a source country for girls sex trafficked within country or to Saudi Arabia; thousands of Yemeni migrant workers deported from Saudi Arabia and Syrian refugees are vulnerable to trafficking; additionally, Yemen is a destination and transit country for women and children from the Horn of Africa who are looking for work or receive fraudulent job offers in the Gulf states but are subjected to sexual exploitation or forced labor upon arrival; reports indicate that adults and children are still sold or inherited as slaves in Yemen
tier rating: Tier 3 – Yemen does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and is not making significant efforts to do so; prolonged political, economic, and security crises, as well as the continued conflation of trafficking and smuggling, impeded the government’s modest anti-trafficking efforts; authorities did not institute formal procedures to identify and protect trafficking victims in 2013, nor did they investigate or prosecute officials complicit in trafficking-related crimes; the government did not report efforts to investigate, prosecute, or convict trafficking offenses, and no known efforts were made to investigate or punish persons practicing chattel slavery; officials agreed to a UN action plan to eliminate the use of child soldiers but failed to make efforts to remove child soldiers from the military; draft anti-trafficking legislation still awaits parliamentary endorsement (2014)