Under the existing constitution, the president is elected for seven-year terms. In 2011, after sustained pressure from the United States, the United Nations, and the Gulf Cooperation Council, longtime president Ali Abdullah Saleh signed a Saudi-brokered agreement that transferred his powers to then vice president Hadi in exchange for immunity from prosecution for his role in a violent crackdown on antigovernment protests. In 2012, Yemeni voters confirmed Hadi, who ran unopposed, as interim president with a two-year term. In 2014, the multiparty National Dialogue Conference (NDC), a months-long initiative in which more than 500 delegates aimed to reach agreement on Yemen’s political future, concluded with a plan to transform the country into a federated state of six regions. The NDC also extended Hadi’s term for one year so that the proposed reforms could be finalized in a new constitution.

However, the constitutional drafting process and election schedule were thrown into disarray by the Houthis, an armed rebel movement known formally as Ansar Allah (Supporters of God) that is rooted in the Zaidi Shiite population of northwestern Yemen. Houthi forces took over large swaths of the country, eventually occupying Sanaa in September 2014. The Houthis subsequently refused to evacuate the capital as part of a tentative power-sharing agreement, leading Hadi and his cabinet to flee into exile in early 2015. Meanwhile, the Houthis assumed control of state institutions in the areas they held. Hadi retained international recognition as president but had no clear mandate and little control over the country.

According to the constitution, the president selects the 111 members of the largely advisory upper house of Parliament, the Majlis al-Shura (Consultative Council). The 301 members of the lower house, the House of Representatives, are elected to serve six-year terms. The original six-year mandate of the last Parliament expired in 2009, and elections were put off again in 2011 amid the popular uprising against Saleh. In January 2014, the NDC declared that parliamentary elections would occur within nine months of a referendum on the new constitution then being drawn up. The constitutional drafting committee completed its work in January 2015, but due to the outbreak of the civil war and the Saudi-led intervention in March of that year, no vote has yet taken place. The incumbent Parliament was disbanded after the Houthis seized control of the capital.

Presidential and legislative elections are now many years overdue, and no side in the civil war has been able to assert enough territorial control to implement any electoral framework.

Political parties continue to exist in Yemen, but they face severe repression by different authorities and armed groups across the country.

The Houthis have harshly suppressed political dissent in areas under their control since 2015. In July 2019, the Houthi-controlled Specialized Criminal Court in Sanaa issued death sentences against 30 academics and political figures associated with opposition groups after trial proceedings that Amnesty International described as a “sham.” Security forces associated with the UAE have used arbitrary arrests, detentions, and enforced disappearances to persecute certain political groups, including members of Al-Islah, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood in Yemen.

In August 2019, after clashes broke out in the southern city of Aden between the Saudi-backed Hadi government and the southern separatist movement, an ally of convenience against the Houthis that enjoys UAE support, the separatist forces detained dozens of progovernment politicians, clerics, and activists. The infighting was apparently resolved through a Saudi-brokered agreement in October.

Parliamentary elections have not been held in Yemen since 2003 and were last due in 2009. The most recent presidential election, in 2012, featured only one candidate. No date has been set for future elections, and peaceful political opposition has been suppressed in the context of the civil war.

Ordinary political activity is impeded by the presence of multiple armed groups throughout Yemen, including Houthi-led rebel forces, Sunni extremist groups, southern separatists, foreign troops from the Saudi-led coalition, Hadi government troops, and local or partisan militias.

All segments of the population lack political rights under current conditions in Yemen. Thirty percent of the NDC’s delegates were women, and its final agreement called for similar representation in all branches of government under a new constitution, but the draft constitution has been on hold since the outbreak of war. Only one woman won a seat in the last parliamentary elections. A caste-like minority group with East African origins, known as the Akhdam or Muhamasheen, accounts for as much as 10 percent of the population but has long been marginalized in politics and in society. The group had one representative at the NDC.

Yemen has no functioning central government, and any state institutions that continue to operate are controlled by unelected officials and armed groups. The Hadi government is largely dependent on its foreign patrons, particularly Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which also have relationships with other anti-Houthi groups. The Houthis receive at least some support from Iran.

Government transparency and accountability were minimal even before the outbreak of war in 2015, as a network of corruption and patronage established under Saleh remained entrenched in public institutions, and formal anticorruption mechanisms were largely ineffective. The disruption to legal commerce caused by the civil war has increased the role of the black market and created further opportunities for graft. Food aid is often stolen and sold on the black market by officials on all sides of the conflict, including Houthis and armed forces linked to the Saudi military coalition, exacerbating a food-security crisis that has left millions at risk of malnutrition.

The only truly national institution that had initially continued to function during the civil war, the central bank, has been split between a government-backed version in Aden and a rebel-backed version in Sanaa since 2016. This has caused politicized disruptions to public-sector salaries, aid, and commerce, and further reduced the transparency of state finances and monetary policy.

The state has historically controlled most terrestrial television and radio, though there have been several privately owned radio stations. Since the outbreak of the war, the belligerents have either taken over or enforced self-censorship at any surviving media outlets in the country. Houthi-backed authorities reportedly block certain news websites, online messaging and social media platforms, and satellite broadcasts. The Saudi-led coalition and Hadi government forces have also harassed and arrested reporters.

The war has made Yemen more dangerous for journalists, who endure violent attacks and enforced disappearances from all sides in the conflict. In May 2019, the Committee to Project Journalists reported that it had received documentation indicating a pattern of mistreatment and torture of journalists in the custody of Houthi forces; some had been held since 2015 without trial. Among other new press freedom violations during the year, Abdul Hafiz al-Samadi, a former journalist whose political analysis was critical of corruption in Yemeni politics, was seized by Houthi forces in Sanaa in July and taken to an unknown location.

Islam is the official religion, and the constitution declares Sharia (Islamic law) to be the source of all legislation. Yemen has few non-Muslim religious minorities; their rights have traditionally been respected in practice, though conversion from Islam and proselytizing to Muslims is prohibited. The civil war has inflamed sectarian tensions between the Shiite Houthis and Sunni militant groups. Members of Yemen’s Baha’i community in the north have reported increased persecution by Houthi-controlled rebel forces, which they see as a sign of growing Iranian influence. Legal proceedings in the case of 24 Baha’i members who were arrested by Houthi forces in 2018 and charged with apostasy and espionage continued during 2019.

Attacks on clerics have increased since the war’s outbreak. In 2017 and 2018 up to 27 clerics were killed in the Aden area; many were members of an Islamist group favored by Saudi Arabia but viewed as an extremist organization by the UAE. No suspects had been identified as of 2019.

Combatants on both sides of the conflict have destroyed many religious sites and mosques across the country.

Strong politicization of campus life, including tensions between supporters of Saleh’s General People’s Congress (GPC) party and the opposition party Al-Islah, historically infringed on academic freedom at universities. Since 2015, Houthi forces have detained scholars as part of their crackdown on dissent. The civil war has also caused damage to educational facilities across the country, suspension of classes and other activities at schools and universities, and deaths of children caught in either errant or deliberate military attacks on schools. Millions of students no longer attend school due to the war, and thousands have been recruited by armed groups.

Freedom of personal expression and private discussion is severely limited as a result of intimidation by armed groups and unchecked surveillance by the Houthi authorities.

Yemenis have historically enjoyed some freedom of assembly, with periodic restrictions and sometimes deadly interventions by the government. Demonstrations against both the Hadi government and Houthi authorities occurred in 2019. Houthi officials have arrested dozens of people for protesting over declining living standards and high commodity prices in Sanaa, and the demonstrators have been violently attacked in some cases. In August, thousands of people assembled in Aden to express support for the southern separatist movement.

A number of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) work in the country, but their ability to function is restricted by interference from armed groups. Houthi forces have closed or raided NGO offices and detained activists, and both sides in the civil war have blocked or seized humanitarian aid. Human rights defenders risk arrest and detention by both Saudi-backed and Houthi forces. Among other cases during 2019, Houthi authorities arrested two human rights advocates—Awfa al-Na’ami, director of Saferworld’s Yemen office, and her colleague Alhassan al-Qawtari—in January and held them without charge for two weeks before releasing them.

The law acknowledges the right of workers to form and join trade unions, but in practice these organizations have had little freedom to operate. Virtually all unions belong to a single labor federation, and the government is empowered to veto collective bargaining agreements. Normal union activity has been disrupted by the civil war and the related breakdown of the economy.

The judiciary, though nominally independent, is susceptible to interference from various political factions. Authorities have a poor record of enforcing judicial rulings, particularly those issued against prominent tribal or political leaders. Lacking an effective court system, citizens often resort to tribal forms of justice and customary law—practices that have increased as state institutions continue to deteriorate.

Arbitrary detention is common, with hundreds of cases documented in recent years. Many amount to enforced disappearances, with no available information about the victims’ status or location. Detainees are often held at unofficial detention sites. As with other state institutions, security and intelligence agencies like the Political Security Organization have been split into parallel Houthi- and Hadi-controlled structures, with each operating in territory controlled by its side in the civil war. In areas that lie within the UAE’s sphere of influence in southern Yemen, Emirati special forces have been accused of operating a network of secret prisons and detention centers where torture is said to be rife.

The civil war has included periods of acute violence across the country. Saudi-led coalition air strikes have failed to distinguish between military and civilian targets, and artillery fire from Houthi forces has been similarly indiscriminate. A Saudi-led strike on a market in the northern province of Saada killed 14 civilians in July 2019, while in September more than 60 people were killed in a Saudi-led attack on a university in Dhamar that had been repurposed by Houthi forces to serve as a prison. A number of other armed factions, including foreign military units and extremist groups like Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), operate in the country with impunity for any abuses. According to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, as of June 2019 more than 91,000 people had been killed in the conflict since the beginning of 2015.

In December 2018, representatives of the main belligerents meeting in Stockholm agreed to a cease-fire covering the strategic port city of Hodeidah. The pact also called for a prisoner exchange and facilitation of the movement of humanitarian aid. In July 2019, the UN special envoy for Yemen, Martin Griffiths, urged faster implementation of the agreement to prevent the fragile truce around Hodeidah from unraveling. The UAE had begun pulling back from Hodeidah and redeploying its troops across southern Yemen in June, significantly reducing its direct military involvement by year’s end, though it continued to support local proxies.

Despite the growing sectarian rift between the Sunni Muslim majority and the large Zaidi Shiite minority, Yemen is relatively homogeneous in terms of language and ethnicity. However, the Muhamasheen face severe social discrimination and poverty. Women also continue to face discrimination in many aspects of life, and their testimony in court is equivalent to half that of a man. Same-sex sexual activity is illegal, with possible penalties including lashes, imprisonment, and death. Due to the severe threats they face, few LGBT+ Yemenis reveal their identity.

Migrants and refugees fleeing war and poverty in the Horn of Africa continue to arrive in Yemen. Roughly 280,000 refugees and asylum seekers remained in Yemen in 2019, according to UN data. Many of those entering were seeking work in the Gulf states but faced harsh conditions, violence, and barriers to further travel once in Yemen.

More than three million people were internally displaced in Yemen as of 2019, according to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Movement within the country is impaired by combat, damage to infrastructure, and checkpoints at which a variety of armed groups engage in harassment and extortion.

Even in peacetime, a woman must obtain permission from her husband or father to receive a passport and travel abroad.

Property rights and business activity have been severely disrupted by the civil war and unchecked corruption, as well as the retreat of state authorities from large areas of Yemen and the division of the country into spheres of influence controlled by different armed groups. Women do not have equal rights in inheritance matters.

Women face disadvantages in divorce and custody proceedings, and require a male guardian’s permission to marry. Child marriage is a widespread problem. There are some restrictions on marriage to foreigners; a woman can confer citizenship on a child from a foreign-born spouse if the child is born in Yemen. The penal code allows lenient sentences for those convicted of “honor crimes”—assaults or killings of women by family members for alleged immoral behavior. Although female genital mutilation is banned in state medical facilities, it is still prevalent in some areas. Extremist groups have attempted to impose crude versions of Sharia in territory under their control, harshly punishing alleged violations related to sexual activity, personal appearance, and other matters.

The war has increased the risk of human trafficking, and after 2015 the government was no longer able to pursue antitrafficking efforts it had previously begun. Migrants, refugees, and the internally displaced are especially vulnerable to exploitation. Border controls and naval blockades imposed by the Saudi-led coalition have contributed to shortages of food, medicine, fuel, and other essential imports, leaving the public more exposed to famine and disease as well as coercion and deprivation by armed groups and black-market traders. In December 2018, the United Nations reported that 20 million people were going hungry in Yemen. A cholera outbreak continued in 2019 and resulted in more than 900 deaths in the first nine months of the year. Fuel shortages worsened in September as new Hadi government regulations appeared to hamper commercial imports through Hodeidah.