According to the United Nations, school closures resulting from the pandemic have affected 1.6 billion learners across more than 190 countries. It is estimated that some 23.8 million more children would drop out of school and an additional 5.6 million child marriages can be expected because of the coronavirus pandemic. Education Cannot Wait has appealed for more funding to provide an education for 30 million refugees, 40 million displaced children, and 75 million children in conflict zones - of whom 39 million are girls. Credit: Zofeen Ebrahim/IPS

By IPS Correspondents
BONN, Germany/UNITED NATIONS, Sep 18 2020 (IPS)

Aryan is a 15-year-old girl from Afghanistan who lives with her family in a shelter in an undisclosed country in Europe. She doesn’t go to school. But she is hugely creative. And it shows in how she occupies her time during the day — writing poetry and making bracelets and earrings that she hopes to sell online one day.

Her mom is creative too. Though her creativity stems more from necessity and a need to care for her family. At the height of the COVID-19 lockdowns when Aryan’s mother couldn’t find a supply of protective masks for her family to wear, she made them out of socks.

Aryan likens the COVID-19 lockdowns to a war, one without the dropping of bombs.

But she says life is more difficult for those without a place to live, with no home and no shelter.

She thinks specifically of what is happening on the border of Greece and Turkey. In the refugee camps, particularly Moria, which is located on the Greek island of Lesbos.

“How crowded and cold it is there, how can people be so blind to forget the children, how their toys can become infected from dirty water and from garbage all around,” she says.

Not just a health crisis but an education crisis also

Aryan is sadly just one of the world’s 40 million displaced children. Her story is just a chapter of the larger story faced not only by refugee children but also the 75 million children living in conflict zones. Children whose lives have become more complicated by the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the United Nations, school closures resulting from the pandemic have affected 1.6 billion learners across more than 190 countries.

“We are facing an economic and a health crisis, which has now become an education crisis. And the people who are hardest hit are the 30 million refugees, the 40 million displaced children, the 75 million children in conflict zones. And we know from the reports that we’ve just heard … despite all our efforts the situation is just getting worse and not better and we have to do more,” former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Gordon Brown said yesterday Sept. 17.

Brown was speaking at a webinar on the sidelines of the 75th Session of the U.N. General Assembly hosted by Education Cannot Wait (ECW) — a multilateral global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises — titled “The Future of Education is Here for Those Left Furthest Behind”. He was joined by education advocates, leaders and politicians, as well as teachers from around the world. 

Seeing young children from Moira, forcibly on the move, must be catalyst for supporting their education

Brown, chair of the ECW high-level steering group and also the U.N. special envoy for global education, brought attention to the current situation in Moria, which was devastated on Sept. 8 by a fire.

According to Human Rights Watch, the destruction in the largest refugee camp in Europe left some 13,000 refugees and asylum seekers without shelter and services.

Greek authorities have been attempting to move people to a new camp, while Germany has offered to give shelter to some of the refugees and asylum seekers.

But Brown had raised the tragic situation of the camp two years ago.

“I highlighted the tragic situation of three young teenagers who couldn’t get [an] education or any resources at the Moria camp in Greece. Young people who were driven to try suicide themselves. Losing hope, desolate, they tried to take their own lives. And I appealed for more funds to help the refugees there and in the other camps nearby,” he recalled.

“A few weeks ago, when I was trying with others to get money into this camp for help with education, we had one of the worst fires we have seen. Today we are seeing hundreds of people moving from that area into other camps in the area but worried about their future,” Brown said.

He said that if there was anything to persuade people to do more and commit to the education of children in conflict it was seeing young children from Moira, forcibly on the move “having to find a new camp for themselves but still in need of the education and the help and the support that we haven’t been able to give so far,” Brown said, emphasising that this was the mission and task at ECW and to ensure that millions of people and displaced refugees have a better future.

ECW has reached 2.6 million children, raised an additional $23.6 million

Brown said that its inception a few years ago, ECW has created several million places for young people to receive an education when they are either displaced or in refugee situations. He also stressed that ECW has been the catalyst for other organisations to come together and do more.

Working with 75 partner organisations globally, ECW has so far provided $662.3 million for supporting education in emergencies.

In August, ECW launched its 2019 annual results report tiled Stronger Together in Crisis, showing that in 2019 alone the fund provided education to 2.6 million vulnerable children, raising $252.8 million from private and public donors. In total, since its inspection ECW has raised $600 million.

Thursday’s event, which hosted a new donation feature in partnership with Zoom and online fundraising platform Pledgeling, raised an additional $23.6 million to support vulnerable children and youth, particularly those affected by conflict, forced displacement and protected crises. The aid will focus on the most marginalised, including girls, refugees and children with disabilities, ECW said in a statement. Within the first few minutes of the meeting 4 donors had already pledged over $12,000.

But Brown pointed out that ECW will require $300 million in the coming year to provide the service needed for children.

ECW director, Yasmine Sherif, said despite the gains made over the years, “education is still not here for a large part of children and youth affected by conflict and crisis and forced displacement”.

She said ECW wanted to make education a reality for all the 75 million children in conflict zones, more than half of whom — some 39 million — are girls.

She also pointed out that the type of education delivered was also very important “to make sure that we deliver quality education, an education that is relevant”.

She explained that it was important that the curriculum thought what was relevant and important to learn in the 21st century but also addressed the specific needs of children or young people who had grown up in a country of violence or had been uprooted from their homes and forced to flee.

“There needs to be a holistic approach and to look at all the needs and the potential that they have because of what they have gone through,” Sherif said.

The global crisis in education – the stakes are far higher with COVID-19

A staunch supporter of ECW, and U.K. Minister for Overseas Territories and Sustainable Development at the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, Baroness Liz Sugg said that while there was already a global crisis before the pandemic, the stakes are “far, far higher” now.  

“Where conflicts rage, access education is not just crucial for the future of each individual child but for the reintegration, for economic development, and for building that sustainable peace we really want to see,” Sugg, who is also the U.K. Special Envoy for Girls’ Education, said.

She added that just because every country is facing economic instability at the moment, is not an excuse for inaction on education. 

16-year-old Catherine from South Sudan said that the most difficult part of the COVID-19 pandemic was not being able to attend school. “Before, I was out of school for one and a half years because I am an orphan,” she explained.

Catherine’s concerns about being able to attend school again are valid. According to a recent U.N. policy brief on the impact of COVID-19 on education, countries with low human development are facing the brunt of school lockdowns, with more than 85 percent of their students effectively out of school by the second quarter of 2020. It was also estimated that some 23.8 million more children would drop out of school and an additional 5.6 million child marriages can be expected because of the coronavirus pandemic. Women and girls will ultimately bear the brunt of the worst impacts of the pandemic.

Ministers from Burkina Faso, Somalia and Ethiopia also highlighted the plight of many of their refugee children. 

Abdullahi Godah Barre, Minister of Education and Higher Education in Somalia, said 68 percent of the country’s children were out of school. 

Ethiopia’s Minister of Education Dr. Eng. Getahun Mekuriya discussed how, with one of the largest refugee populations in Africa, the country is addressing the current crisis. In the refugee camps, Mekuriya said, there is heightened food insecurity, inability to pay rent, among other issues — further exacerbated by the pandemic, which in turn has grave effects on education. 

The Ethiopian government has created a distant learning plan which is helping children to learn through television, radio and other digital platforms. 

“An estimated 5.1 million primary and secondary school children received this service,” Mekuriya said, adding that technology access and connectivity still remains a challenge for many in the community. 

U.N. Education chief calls for reimagining of education

Henrietta Fore, Executive Director of the U.N. Children’s Fund, which hosts the ECW secretariat, called for a reimagining education — “of changing our way of thinking, of rewriting our story”.

“We really have to refresh our thinking about what education can be,” she said.

She shared her recommendations on what the steps forward ought to focus on:

• Quality: to ensure young people are taught fundamental skills, entrepreneurial skills to have as tools if they don’t have the chance to go higher education.
• Universality: “All children need this,” she said, “it doesn’t matter if you’re in an urban or rural world. We’ve got to come up with hybrid solutions.”
  
• Promoting humanitarian cases: “Humanitarian spots are harder,” she said, “Those who are living in and fleeing from conflict are hard to find, hard to settle — it can be hard to get them to a learning space.”
  
• Safety: Schools are also safe spaces for children, and she said it’s crucial to help them create that space for themselves
  

Despite the concerns and the high number of students the crisis is affecting, leaders were hopeful. Dag-Inge Ulstein, Norway’s Minister for International Development, said there is light ahead on the road. 

“The story about how humanity handled COVID-19 is being written now, and education will have a central place in the conclusion,” he said. “Let it not become the story of a lost generation, nor of a community that abandoned its promise to leave no one behind when push came to shove.” 

Brown echoed these sentiments. “I know that everybody will share the same aim, let us build a better future for this generation of young people. Let them have the education they need. They are more talented and with more potential than the underfunded education systems we’re providing them with at the moment. Let’s make sure that we can see the talent of a new generation realised and fulfilled,” Brown said.

But until then, life for Aryan remains a nomadic one.

Today, Aryan is sitting outside the shelter her family have been staying at. Her backpack full with her belongings.

She has found out that the family have to move. “This is how the situation of most refugees are running like this. Having their backpack, their suitcase, moving around, from place to another place,” she says in a video she has made for GlobalGirl Media — a digital journalism training and platform dedicated to providing content by, for and about girls and young women, globally.

“I can describe my situation like kicking the ball, and its very difficult. It’s very difficult.”

Speaking from the United Nations Headquarters in New York on Wednesday, the U.N. Special Envoy for Global Education, Gordon Brown, defined 2015 as the year to end violations of the rights of the children worldwide.

“It is time for us to end the shameful breaches of international law that violate the rights of millions of children by calling a halt to the militarization of schools, stopping the now-growing abduction of school pupils as weapons of war and insisting – even in conflict zones – that properly resourced ‘safe schools’ enable children to enjoy their education in peace”, Brown said.

The British ex-Prime Minister highlighted the case of South Sudan, saying “The tragedy in South Sudan with schools being militarized and over 12,000 children abducted to serve as child soldiers must be stopped.”

Having recently visited Pakistan, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and South Sudan, Brown said that the international community should focus on several steps to change the status quo.

Firstly, Brown called for the international community to reach an agreement on a new multi-million dollar Global Humanitarian Fund for Education in Emergencies, to be set before the Oslo Summit on Global Education in July.

Brown also announced his call for a conference in Washington on April 16, on educating the half-million Syrian child refugees in Lebanon. Following an agreement reached with the Lebanese minister of education, the aim is to raise $163m for Lebanese schools to operate on a double-shift system to sustain Syrian children’s schooling.

Thirdly, Brown highlighted the importance of schemes like the Safe Schools Initiative, which has just been launched in Pakistan after initial success in Nigeria. The Pakistani government, in partnership with UNICEF and the Global Business Coalition for Education, will launch safety-assessment technology in around 1000 pilot schools in the country. Soon, the initiative will be extended to countries like South Sudan, Lebanon and the DRC.

In Nigeria, the Safe Schools Initiative has raised $30m, with a large contribution from the United States, said Brown. “Nearly 30,000 children displaced by Boko Haram are in double-shift schools and additional children in at-risk areas are benefiting from school relocation and increased security measures,” he added.

Brown invited all countries to sign the international Safe School Declaration (recognized now by 30 countries), which provides the same protection as Red Cross Hospitals.

In closing, Brown urged the international community to increase funding for education as a percentage of humanitarian aid, which is currently at 1 percent. “Insisting on a new fund for education in emergencies is necessary to prevent millions of children from falling through the cracks,” he said.

“We need to re-address aid funds for education and Sustainable Development Goals through partnership with the private sector, and the use of social impacts bonds.”

Follow Valentina Ieri on Twitter @Valeieri

Edited by Roger Hamilton-Martin

Child labourers rescued in Delhi waiting to be sent back to their villages. Credit: Bachpan Bachao Andolan.

By Gordon Brown
LONDON, Feb 22 2013 (IPS)

Next Monday, after more than two months of public anger against the rape of a young Indian student, the Indian Parliament will consider new legislation to toughen up judicial and police provisions addressing violence against women.

And as India demands that more is done to protect the rights of girls and young women, there is the chance of eliminating another form of brutal exploitation. Child trafficking and child slavery will for the first time be defined in legislation in India – with a view to outlawing them altogether.

These demands of Global March Against Child Labour and its Indian co-partner, Bachpan Bachao Andolan, have not only been incorporated in the high level judicial committee constituted to suggest amendments in the Indian criminal legislations, but also included in the Ordinance signed by the President of India.

If we are to succeed – and if India is to lead the way in abolishing these practices globally – the same popular pressure that has brought about the changes in anti-rape laws is now needed to persuade Indian parliamentarians to force an end to the enslavement of children in this way.

Soon, the Indian Parliament will have the chance, for the first time in its history to pass this law which defines and criminalises trafficking and slavery. In addition to this, the Indian Parliament would also have a chance to pass another pending legislation to ban child labour.

Today I invite everyone concerned about the abuse of the rights of boys and girls around the world to add their names to the petitions that we will put to the Indian Parliament urging its members to put an end to child slavery.

The plight of these children is highlighted by the personal tragedy of a 14-year-old girl, Ratni. Her predicament represents everything we are trying to change.

I have been told the true identity of Ratni – one of some 500 Indian girls who every day fall into the hands of slave traders. We are protecting her name because although she has now been freed and reunited with her parents, her sister remains in slavery, still subject to a life of abuse as a bonded labourer – without school, without security from assault and violation, without hope.

Ratni’s story symbolises the urgent need to push for an immediate end to all forms of child labour. I believe we can make a change in the law in India a significant step towards abolishing child slavery across the world.

Ratni was trafficked from a village in Jharkhand in the east to Delhi where she was forced to work as a domestic servant from dawn till dusk.

Her story unfolds in an all too familiar way. A family friend, Subhash, approached her parents, offering their daughter a better life with the promise of both paid work and an education. When she reached Delhi, neither awaited her. Ratni was handed over to Subhash’s younger brother, Ramesh, who placed her in bonded labour.

After a year she was moved on to the Punjab by her slave master where he repeatedly forced himself on her. Ratni tells us: “He had planned to sell me off to a man for Rs 350,000 but the buyer did not have sufficient cash.” While she was in transit at a railway station she was rescued by Bachpan Bachao Andolan, a movement founded by Kailash Satyarthi.

This story has a better ending than most – Ratni was not, in the end, sold into prostitution. Her experience outlines, though, a regular pattern: parents who live in poverty believing their child was being offered a better life by a family friend who turns out to be a trafficker. A young girl not only subject to cruel exploitation as a slave but vulnerable to sexual exploitation and violence, too.

Due to pressure from Kailash and his team, the traffickers have been forced to pay compensation to Ratni. However 200,000 Indian girls like her are trafficked into child slavery every year, joining some 215 million children condemned to child labour worldwide.

The problem is wide-ranging as children are made to work not just as domestic slaves but often in dangerous industries – from agriculture and construction to tin, gold and coal mining and factory production. It’s believed that at least 115 million of these children are working in hazardous conditions. They spend their days in fields, mines, kitchens and on building sites, prevented from getting the education they need to prosper.

Research shows that even where they receive some part-time schooling, it is of poor quality, and attainment is significantly hindered. Worse still, each year 15 million children under the age of 14 don’t receive a single day of schooling because they’re forced to carry out full time work. Their childhood is completely lost, their innocence destroyed and their potential thwarted.

Progress is already being made. The Ordinance which strengthens the laws against child trafficking and forced labour was signed by the President of India, Pranab Mukherjee, earlier this month. This is a significant development in India’s penal system, making it easier to punish those caught enslaving children and deter abusive employers like Subhash and Ramesh. But now, it must be passed by the Indian Parliament.

More though has to be done – and this is where popular pressure can play its part. The bill before the Parliament would outlaw all child labour under 14, as well as many hazardous forms of work for those under 18. This vital legislation would help ensure children are moved from the old oppression they now suffer to the new opportunities they should have the right to enjoy.

Some 750,000 have already signed the petitions we are putting to the Indian Parliament this month. We are asking the Parliament to agree this new law be brought in immediately. Please join them.

Double their number and let us ensure that from around the world many more than one million voices are heard calling for an end to child labour and trafficking and the evil practices that ensure that, even in the twenty-first century, slavery thrives.

You can watch a film of Ratni’s story at www.educationenvoy.org and add your name to the petitions supporting the Indian legislation at Avaaz and Walk Free.

Excerpt: