High-level virtual event to mark the International Day to Protect Education from Attack

Doha, Qatar, 09 September 2020

About one year ago, as you may know, I made the call to establish an International Day to Protect Education from Attack.

We were delighted that the United Nations adopted this resolution, which will give us an annual benchmark to assess progress on this issue. But at the same time, we realized serious commitment must be reflected with a serious response in facing such challenges. Challenges that are growing, multiplying, and ever-changing.

I will never forget, for it has been seared into my memory, the remains of the 40 children who were killed and the blood of the 56 who were wounded. Their school bags strewn across and their textbooks scattered, the pages laid open in condemnation as they witness an atrocity being committed. That was when an airstrike bombed a school bus in Yemen’s Saada Governorate in August 2018.

This was a brutal crime, the perpetrators of which evaded punishment just as others have evaded punishment for similar crimes committed in other countries. In fact, recent data has shown that there have been more than 11,000 attacks on education over the past five years, killing or injuring over 22,000 children, teachers and academics in more than 93 countries.

While we are working to eliminate illiteracy, there are those who are actively working to spread it, as if systematically targeting everything and everyone that drives human development. Perhaps they are the ones who are illiterate, in their morals and conscience, which is why they so oppose the enlightenment of others.

We all know what the affliction is and how to treat it. But, unfortunately, I feel that we have reached a point where we are incapable of dispensing the treatment that we are prescribing.

This the frustrating reality we face; while we are opening schools and enrolling children in one country, schools that we had built in other countries are being targeted and destroyed. And because destruction is, naturally, easier than construction, it is quicker to destroy a school than to build one – slowing our progress, or even forcing us backwards.

Some see our efforts to provide education in conflict zones as futile, wishful thinking. I, on the other hand, see that perspective as a complete disregard of education as a priority. A priority that is so essential that even refugee mothers, who live in camps lacking basic conditions necessary for life, recognize its importance. Despite their harsh circumstances, they realize that the hope education creates is what will pave the way for security and stability.

From these frustrating realities we face in conflict zones to the frustrating, subsequent lack of action from decision-makers, it has become clear how the increasingly large number of attacks has further paralyzed the international community from taking assertive measures. By failing to bring perpetrators to justice, the international community – however unintentionally – has become effectively complicit.

So, it is imperative to leave this grey area and take responsibility. Verbal support from the international community is no longer enough when serious, practical solutions are missing. Decision-makers should not hide behind rhetoric without taking real steps toward change.

Despite this frustration, we still believe there are those within the international community who are willing to unite and take a stand, so that impunity doesn’t become the official response toward attacks on education.

We do not want this day to be simply a ceremonial day on the United Nations calendar. Protection of education must be reflected and embodied by action on the ground.

I cannot imagine that any state, country, organization, or individual wants to bear the lasting shame of being on the wrong side of history – having been silent, complicit, or lenient over the deliberate killing of children in classrooms, where they believed they were safe.

For decision-makers to prevent facing such accusations, they must urgently establish effective mechanisms that enable us to hold the perpetrators of these crimes to account.

So long as we persist in monitoring attacks, sooner or later, we will put an end to impunity.

Protecting the lives, education, and future of those children is a responsibility that the international community cannot afford to ignore; a test that it cannot fail.

For in these times, our humanity is tested.

Let us unite to protect education.