Human Rights
In a small flat, Ahmad Atef sits in the corner of his room, which he shares with two other students, eating a meal whose price does not exceed JOD 0.5. It is his only meal today.
Atef has been enrolled at the Hashemite University’s Medical School in Jordan as part of the Jordanian-Yemeni Cultural Exchange Program. At the end of the current academic year, he would have completed his residency.
Atef and his roommates live in austerity because their student allowances from Yemen paid each quarter arrive late usually.
Atef’s troubles started in the second academic year and has worsened in 2020 and 2021. “We only receive 2 out of our four quarterly allowances installments per year,” he says. “The last payment we have received was that of the second quarter of 2021.”
Atef’s troubles are shared with 223 additional Yemenis studying in Jordan under the exchange program’s scholarships.
Source: Yemen’s cultural attaché’s office in Jordan
Atef says that their student allowance transfer delays causes them many problems, as they find it difficult to pay their rents and bills and have been facing eviction constantly.
He adds that landlords are often patient, but delays in settling the rent has been a cause of constant worry for them.
The challenges are not restricted to their housing and subsistence, as few have had to skip university lectures because they could not afford to pay for their transportation.
Various Yemeni entities send their students to study in Jordan every year but the majority of those are sponsored by the Ministry of Higher Education.
Foreign students are scattered across seven governorates in Jordan, with the majority residing in Irbid and Amman. The capital hosts nearly half of the foreign students which means costly rents and higher cost of living and transportation.
Source: Yemen’s cultural attaché’s office in Jordan
Amal, a medical student, says that she resorts to borrowing money in order to cover her expenses, and pays back her debts when her allowance arrives. Only to be in debt again, due to the same delays.
Amal claims that it is difficult for her to work while studying at the same time, as Yemeni girls suffer more than boys, because of their upbringing in Yemen’s conservative culture, where girls find it more difficult to mingle with others.
Like Amal and Atef, Mohammad is still stuck in Jordan waiting for six months worth of allowances money that is owed to him for the 2021 academic year, despite his completion of his pharmaceutical degree last year.
He says Yemeni students have held several sit-ins calling for the money owed to them. They also went to the office of Yemen’s cultural attaché in Jordan, but they were told that the allowances had not been transferred. They were also informed by the cultural attaché’s office that advances may be provided, and that they will deducted from their later payments once they receive it.
“There seems to be no solution to this problem; student rights are being disregarded by all involved,” Mohammed says.
Mohammed works for 12 hours every day at a restaurant in return for JOD 250 ($350) a month. He spends JOD 150 ($210) to pay his part of the rent for an apartment he shares with another student. The rest is spent on transportation, bills and living expenditures. In addition to late allowances payments, Mohammed is stuck between Jordan and Yemen.
According to the Yemeni regulation for students studying abroad, a student is granted a one-way ticket to travel to where he or she are enrolled and another one-way ticket to return home after graduation.
A survey conducted on a sample of 54 Yemeni students on government scholarships, has shown that 60 percent of the respondents want to terminate their studies and leave Jordan.
Two thirds of those said that their financial difficulties make them want to quit studying in Jordan. Those difficulties according to the survey range from their inability to buy travel tickets, and settle fines accrued for failing to renew their residencies.
Source: A survey conducted by the story’s writer including 65 students
Many of the students we interviewed did not want to reveal what jobs they did; some work in restaurants to cover their expenses despite it being frowned at in Yemeni culture if you were a university student. A restaurateur in Amman says that he receives many application from Yemeni students searching for work at his business.
Abdel-Aziz Al-Hamid, an employee at the Yemeni Embassy in Jordan, explains that Yemeni students’ residency permit in Jordan does not grant them the right to work. He added that the Jordanian authorities take harsh measures against foreign students who are caught working.
Majority of those interested in quitting work to earn their living expenses
*Source: 54 surveyed students
Fares Al-Najjar, a Yemeni economist, says the problem of late subsistence allowances payment for students is not new and it started with six-month delay in 2016, and increased to 15-month wait in 2020.
Al-Najjar says that the problem started with the war that erupted in March 2015, and left a trail of economic problems in the country. And the Yemeni students in Jordan are suffering the repercussions.
Yemen’s cultural attaché in Jordan, Dr. Qibla Said admits the problem of late and irregular payment of allowances “They are in an unenviable situation,” she says.
Yemeni students abroad in all countries, not just Jordan, suffer, she says.
Dr Said says that her office provided students with aid offered by Yemenis living in Jordan.
The office also contacts landlords and restaurateurs to give students grace periods to pay their debts, and that the embassy has been providing the students psychological, and economic support as well.
The Saudi Program for the Development and Reconstruction of Yemen provided the Yemeni Ministry of Higher Education with $46 millions to cover the expenses of Yemenis stydying abroad between mid-2020 and mid-2021.
The director general of financial affairs at the ministry, Jalal Al-Ghalabi, admits that allowances for students abroad are being settled late. In April 2022, allowances were paid up until the second quarter of 2021.
Al-Ghalabi says preparing and transferring students’ allowances abroad needs more time than before, due to Yemen’s “exceptional conditions.”
The fate of Yemenis on scholarship studying abroad like Atef, Mohammed and Amal – hangs in the balance until official steps are taken to end their suffering.