DOHA: The international launch of "Education under Attack 2010", a Unesco document prepared with the support of H H Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned, will be held at the UN headquarters in New York tomorrow.
The document reports incidents in 32 member states of the UN, including the forced recruitment of child soldiers and their grooming as suicide bombers. It also gives a detailed account of torture or killing of teachers and destruction of learning centres by armed groups.
The study analyses targets and motives, as well as the impact of attacks on education systems and on social, economic and political development. The study also examines measures taken to end impunity for perpetrators of such attacks.
"Teachers, students and school buildings are increasingly coming under attack by armed groups, even by soldiers and security forces", the Unesco said while releasing a summary of the document.
"The publication of these reports has been made possible by the generous support of H H Shiekha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned of Qatar, Unesco Special Envoy for Basic and Higher Education, whose work in recent years has helped bring the issue of attacks on education to the attention of international policy-makers and the wider public", the Unesco office said.
The report will be launched in the presence of, among others, Marck Richmond, Director for the Coordination of United Nations Priorities in Education at Unesco; Brenden O'Malley, author of the Education Under Attack studies, Radhika Coomaraswamy, UN Special Representative of the Secretary General for Children and Armed Conflict; Christopher Talbot, CEO of Education Above All, and Felix Kaputu, a researcher who will share personal experience of attacks on higher education in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The findings of the report are due to be presented in Doha in May 2010.
By Satish Kanady
© The Peninsula 2010
