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http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=50032#.VNm2rPnF8b8
Direct Link to Full 32-Page 2015 UN Background Paper:
http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/CEDAW/Report_attacks_on_girls_Feb2015.pdf
Attacks
Against Girls’ Education Occurring with “Increasing Regularity” – UN Human
Rights Report
A gathering to promote the rights of girls and education for all
in Barrod village of Rajasthan’s Alwar district -Photo: UN Women/Gaganjit Singh
Chandok
9 February 2015 – A new United Nations human rights report
seeking to analyse the problem of attacks against girls trying to access
education found that schools in at least 70 different countries were attacked
in the five years between 2009 and 2014, with many attacks specifically
targeting girls, parents and teachers advocating for gender equality in
education.
“Attacks against girls accessing education persist and,
alarmingly, appear in some countries to be occurring with increasing
regularity,” the background paper notes. “The educational rights of girls and
women are often targeted due to the fact that they represent a challenge to
existing gender and age-based systems of oppression.”
The background paper, which will be presented to the Committee
on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) to contribute to the
development of its general recommendation on access to education, and which
will also be published in advance of the 2015 High-level Review of Security
Council resolution 1325, points to significant progress made towards
guaranteeing education for all in many countries, while noting that girls still
face barriers to full enjoyment of rights to, within and through education.
The report notes several recent cases of attacks against girls
accessing education, which have highlighted the fragility of achievements in
increasing accessibility, availability, adaptability, acceptability and quality
of education for all.
Among the examples are the murder in December 2014 of more than
100 children in a Pakistani Taliban attack at an army school in Peshawar, the abduction
of nearly 300 schoolgirls in April 2014 by the Boko Haram movement in northeast
Nigeria and the 2012 shooting of education activist Malala Yousafzai by members
of the Taliban in Pakistan.
It also points to several incidents of poisoning and acid attacks
against schoolgirls in Afghanistan between 2012 and 2014, the reported forced
removal of girls from schools in Somalia to become 'wives' of Al-Shabaab
fighters in 2010, and the abduction and rape of girls at a Christian school in
India in July 2013.
Attacks on girls' education take several forms and in some
instances are not explicitly motivated by the desire to deny girls an education
but reflect, instead, the violence experienced by girls and women in all areas
of their public and private lives, the report notes.
“Attacks involving sexual violence against teachers and girls in
educational facilities or during the journey to or from them have been reported
in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, El Salvador, Haiti, Indonesia, Iraq,
Mali, Myanmar, the Philippines and Syria,” the paper notes.
Attacks of all varieties have a ripple effect, impacting the
lives of girls and communities who are directly concerned, but also sending a
signal to other parents and guardians that schools are not safe places for
girls.
When girls are removed from education because of security fears
and concerns about their subsequent marriageability, additional human rights
violations may occur, like child and forced marriage, domestic violence, early
pregnancy, exposure to other harmful practices, trafficking and sexual and
labour exploitation.
Among the paper's conclusions and recommendations, it calls for
measures to address the social, cultural, political, economic and security
context within which violations occur, emphasising the need to improve the
availability, accessibility, adaptability and acceptability of education for
girls, while simultaneously launching programmes to tackle discriminatory
cultural and social attitudes and practices.
Noting that transformation of unequal power structures based on
gender and age is a lengthy and difficult process, the report also calls for
the involvement of boys and men in the process of change.
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BACKGROUND PAPER1 ON ATTACKS AGAINST GIRLS SEEKING TO ACCESS EDUCATION Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................2 I. FRAMING THE PROBLEM..................................................................................4 II. THE APPLICABLE INTERNATIONAL LEGAL AND POLICY FRAMEWORKS ON EDUCATION.........................................................................6 A. THE FOUR ‘AS’ FRAMEWORK ...............................................................................8 B. RIGHTS THROUGH EDUCATION .............................................................................9 III. ATTACKS ON GIRLS’ EDUCATION IN SITUATIONS OF INSECURITY AND CRISIS...............................................................................................................10 IV. CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF ATTACKS ON GIRLS’ EDUCATION.............................................................................................................14 A. CAUSES OF ATTACKS AGAINST GIRLS’ EDUCATION ...............................................14 B. HUMAN RIGHTS CONSEQUENCES OF ATTACKS ON GIRLS’ EDUCATION...................17 V. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS..............................................22 VI. RESOURCES.......................................................................................................28 1
This background paper will be presented to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination of against Women, to contribute to the development of its general recommendation on access to education. It will also be submitted to Radhika Coomaraswamy, Lead Author of the Global Study on Women, Peace and Security, to be published in advance of the 2015 High-level Review of Security Council resolution 1325. Finally, this paper will inform the Human Rights Council panel discussion on realizing the equal enjoyment of the right to education by every girl, to be held in June 2015 (HRC res. 27/6).