On Sunday December 10, the world will observe the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 34th anniversary of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child. These conflating instruments uphold the rights of all humans, including children, on whom there is to be particular emphasis this year. As part of the observances, world leaders are to attend a high-level meeting on December 11 and 12, in Geneva, Switzerland, where a youth advisory group will present the Human Rights 75 Youth Declaration.
This group of 12 youth drawn from Bangladesh, Chile, Canada, Jamaica, Jordan, Moldova, New Zealand, the Philippines, Togo, Uganda, the United Kingdom, and Zimbabwe, have all been long steeped in different aspects of human rights’ activism in their countries. Mandated by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), their objectives were to promote the Human Rights 75 initiative among young people worldwide and ensure the integration of youth perspectives so that young people have a voice in the development of future human rights’ commitments.
The importance of the work of the youth advisors was underscored by the constant erosion of children’s rights owing to poverty, climate change, wars and their concomitant displacement among other ongoing crises. Just over two weeks ago, on World Children’s Day, the UN released data which showed that one in five children in the world (some 400 million) were either living in or fleeing from conflict zones. Apart from the inherent danger of living in parts of the world where the sounds of bombs, guns and mortar fire are the new normal, children in such catastrophic circumstances have basically had their rights torn away from them. In war zones, not only are children not protected, but their access to education and health care take a back seat to staying alive. Worse, even as this column is being read, thousands of children of all ages and genders who are unable to escape conflicts are actively being exploited, recruited or forced to bear arms, maimed and killed.
In 2015, recognising the deleterious effects of war on education, Norway and Argentina led the successful charge at the level of the UN for the Safe Schools Declaration, described by the UN as “an inter-governmental political agreement dedicated to protecting education in armed conflict”. Over the ensuing years, other countries have endorsed the declaration, bringing the total to date to 118.
In the main, the Safe Schools Declaration seeks to deter nations from using schools, colleges and universities as bases, barracks or detention centres during wars. At the same time, it seeks to protect educational buildings from being shelled, bombed or burned, in the hope that the infrastructure remains intact. The declaration speaks in general terms of safe and conflict-sensitive education and mentions learning institutions being targeted outside of war scenarios to abet exclusion and intolerance or restrict diversity. However, it does not delve into the inevitable fallout and trauma that occur when the adversity faced by schools arise from internal conflict.
Ironically, Guyana endorsed the Safe Schools Declaration in May this year, the same month in which the horrific Mahdia school dormitory fire claimed the lives of 20 children. One would like to hope that it was that trauma as well as the suffering and stress caused by the ongoing and burgeoning violence in schools that was uppermost in the minds of those in authority at the time of signing. Unfortunately, the current lack of proactivity in making and keeping schools safe says otherwise.
As was stated in this column earlier this week, in the face of unbridled and rapidly escalating instances of student on student, student on teacher, and parent on teacher violence and variations of these occurring on school premises, the response by the Ministry of Education has been decidedly muted. There is a puzzling determination against recognising or even considering that violence (reference is being made here to corporal punishment) begets violence.
The signs that the old methods have failed are all around us, yet denial persists.
The skewed perception that buildings and fences equal safety has been blown to smithereens along with the educational institutions which have been destroyed over the years.
It has been laid bare as a fallacy by the violence continually committed inside schools. Perhaps it is time for our leaders to admit that they are unable to navigate a way forward and emulate the OHCHR by pulling together a diverse group of bright and progressive young activists to help.