Irfan Chowdhury
In the wake of Israel becoming the first country to recognise Somaliland as an independent state – likely to use as a staging ground for attacks against Yemen – this article explores Britain’s history of abusive practices against children in Aden, southern Yemen; these abusive practices were often directed at children from Somaliland, who were living in Aden. This dark history is worth bearing in mind as a tragic reminder of the interlinked histories of the peoples of both Somaliland and Yemen, who have been victimised by British colonialism; especially in light of Britain’s ongoing support for Israeli militarism in the region, including Israel’s genocide in Gaza, which Britain facilitated by carrying out direct airstrikes in Yemen designed to break the ‘support front’ that the Ansarullah movement had set up in support of Gaza. In this context, Britain’s abuse of both Arab and Somali children in Aden is worth revisiting, to understand how Western imperialism in the region has consistently collectively victimised those subject to its cynical manoeuvring; a continuing trend.
Flogging Somali boys for petty theft
From the mid to late 1800s, residents of Somaliland would oftentimes cross over into nearby Aden in southern Yemen, which was at that time under British colonial rule. These migrants from Somaliland typically came in search of work. There were also Somali families who had already been living in Aden prior to Britain’s takeover of the territory in 1839.
The British colonial authorities in Aden reserved brutal punishments for Somali men and boys when they were found to have engaged in minor offences, such as petty theft; young boys were among the victims of protracted public lashings.
In 1895, Donald Mackenzie from the Howard Association (now the Howard League), which campaigned for penal reform in Britain and its colonies, visited Aden and gathered evidence of these punishments being inflicted on Somali men and boys there; he wrote the following in a statement that he subsequently presented to the executive committee of the Howard Association in England:
“I am anxious to draw your attention to a matter, which I think of considerable importance, regarding the punishment of boys and men at ADEN. It was brought under my notice, while staying there two months ago. It appears that boys and men from SOMALILAND, who come for work, or are residents in Aden, are punished, in my opinion, in a most cruel manner. Sometimes petty thefts are committed by small boys or grown-up men. For these offences they are tied up to a post and lashed, some tender boys receiving as many as fifty lashes on their bare backs. Many of them are possibly injured for life. In this respect Somalis are treated as if they were slaves.”
Mackenzie pointed out that these lashings – including those inflicted on children, which likely left many of the child victims permanently disfigured – were conducted in line with British policy as had been established in India, and that British settlers were permitted to get away with brutalising the native Adeni population while Somalis were punished in this manner for minor offences.
Despite this pressure from the Howard Association, flogging was not abolished in Aden, including in the case of children. In 1951 and again in 1952, consecutive Labour and Conservative governments confirmed in Parliament that children were still being flogged in the colonies.
Exploiting Arab and Somali boys as servants
The flogging of Somali boys in Aden by the British colonial authorities was emblematic of a more widespread impunity with which Britain acted in relation to children – and in particular boys – in Aden. An example of this is that British military personnel used boys – both Somali and Arab – as personal servants in Aden. One soldier, J. Campbell, wrote of his experiences serving within the RAF Khormaksar Engine Repair Shop in Aden in 1937:
“The camp was guarded by Aden Levies and Native Labour, mainly Somalis. We would go to work just after 6 am, returning for breakfast around 8 am, and on returning to work, finish around noon. The temperature was usually around 98 with the humidity the same. Afternoons usually meant a couple of hours in bed, after which we indulged in sport… Each hut had a native servant and boy to look after every need, such as cleaning shoes or fetching tea in the morning, and if memory serves we each paid about eight annas per week for this service. Laundry was collected each morning and returned the same afternoon, immaculate.”
Thus, British military personnel at RAF Khormaksar lived a largely luxurious life, while these boys tended to their every need.
The fact that J. Campbell wrote of this use of boy servants still going on in 1937 is noteworthy because, as pointed out by professor emeritus of modern British history at Lancaster University, Stephen Constantine, “child labour was no longer acceptable in Britain” by the early 1920s. What was deemed unacceptable in Britain was still being deemed acceptable in the colonies. In fact, the British military’s use of boy servants in Aden continued until at least 1960, as historian Richard Taylor has observed:
“The Royals, arriving in Aden in late 1959, commented that, ‘It looked just like a penal settlement…’ Taking over from them, 11th Hussars found Falaise Camp in Little Aden in November 1960 much better than they had expected, and remarked upon the excellent hospitality at the hands of BP [British Petroleum] who kindly allowed them to use their swimming pool complete with ‘its essential shark net!’. Laundry was rapid and cheap, and even troopers employed a ‘boy’ to look after their room and bull their boots and prepare their kit to a high standard.”
Torturing schoolboys as part of counterinsurgency
British policies in Aden created widespread resentment and unrest; by 1963, a revolt had broken out, which lasted until 1967. Britain responded with brutal repression, including torturing children. Amnesty International produced a report in 1966 on the horrific nature of Britain’s detention centres in Aden. The report noted that “young school boys have been interrogated and detained in the same way as elder prisoners”, and documented a number of physical and sexual torture techniques being used on Adeni detainees, including “young school boys”, at the hands of British soldiers. These techniques included “Undressing the detainees and making them stand naked during interrogation”, “Forcing the detainees to sit on poles directed towards their anus”, “Hitting and twisting their genital organs”, “Extinguishing cigarettes on their skin”, and “Banning visits to lavatories so that they soil their cells with faeces and urine”.
The report detailed the case of an underage detainee named Gemil Mahfod Khalifa – “a 16 year old high school boy”. Gemil was taken from his family home by twenty British soldiers in the early morning, and had his hand fractured during an interrogation. His family’s complaints about his arrest were ignored by the British colonial authorities.
As noted by Ian Cobain, Harold Wilson’s Labour government responded to Amnesty’s report by publicly dismissing everything contained therein. In fact, Cobain unearthed that the high commissioner of Aden at the time, Sir Richard Turnbull, privately argued in a confidential telegram to the Foreign Office that the torture methods being used by British soldiers in Aden were justified, and that the torturers deserved pity/respect for their efforts:
“In the interrogation centre we depend on serving officers carrying out an exacting, unpleasant and difficult task which in the last resort they cannot be forced to do, or at all events do determinedly. They are marked men for terrorists – secrets of identity cannot be kept here – and have physical danger as well as unpleasant work to endure.”
One should further consider Britain’s actions in Yemen in the 21st century – which have included facilitating a brutal Saudi-led bombing campaign and blockade that killed hundreds of thousands of people, including tens of thousands of children through starvation. Britain has also directly conducted airstrikes on Yemen over the past two years, along with the US, in order to enable Israel’s genocide in Gaza; these airstrikes severely damaged the work of aid agencies in Yemen.
Britain’s cruelty in Yemen didn’t end with decolonisation; it has simply taken new forms. That cruelty is likely to continue going forward, as Israel and the US prepare to carry out ever-escalating violence, with Britain backing US-Israeli hegemony in the region.
Source: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20251227-britains-dark-history-of-child-abuse-in-yemen/
