HH Sheikha Moza Addresses Security Council Event about Attacks on Schools and Hospitals During Armed Conflicts

New york , June 30 (QNA) - HH Sheikha Moza bint Nasser participated, in her capacity as UNESCO's Special Envoy for Basic and Higher Education , in a side event of the Security Council about the attacks on schools and hospitals during armed conflicts held in New york on Thursday.
HH Sheikha Moza gave a speech in the event where she said that protecting the right to education during conflicts is one of her highest priorities. HH Sheika Moza said: "I believe that education is not a luxury, stressing that the right to education is the right to a future. Education ought to be protected as a fundamental human right for every child in this world." She added that to "To interfere with that right is a grave injustice, because the loss of education due to conflict extends the costs of conflict into the next generation."
In that context, HH Sheikha Moza considered the inability to be provided with education is "an opportunity lost for the children who are condemned to poverty and ignorance, and for the nations whose hopes of a better tomorrow are stolen from them."
HH Sheikha Moza points out to the UN Secretary General s Annual Report on Children and Armed Conflict which says that there is an increasing trend of direct and physical damage to schools, the closure of schools as a result of threats and intimidation, and the military occupation and use of schools as recruiting grounds in armed conflicts across the globe. She denounced such trend, saying that "We all agree that education is a basic human right and that attacks on schools, students, and teachers are human rights issues. These attacks violate international law and have been taken up in past Council resolutions."
HH Sheikha Moza listed the ways in which the council set out to deal with those trends: "In 2005, the Council adopted the MRM to ensure that six of the most serious violations of children s rights during conflict are reported. Four years later, the Council took another important step by extending the trigger mechanism of the MRM to also include the killing and maiming, rape and sexual violence directed towards children. We need to build on these resolutions and reinforce the MRM mechanism to insure that attacks against schools do not go unreported."

On the report, HH Sheikha Moza said that she had read it with "interest and alarm". HH Sheikha Moza further said that the international community must send an "a clear message to everyone, especially those in nations in conflict, that we are serious about protecting the right to an education."
HH Sheikha Moza said: a number of steps will be taken in response to the pattern of increasing violence against schools: "First, by making attacks on schools and hospitals a trigger for listing violators in the Secretary General s report on Children and Armed Conflict, we raise the profile of this issue in the international community. And we send the critical message that the Security Council regards attacks on education as equally important as other violations against children.
Second, we must ensure that the MRM system monitors attacks on education, including attacks against students or education personnel, on a systematic and comprehensive basis. The purpose of this monitoring is to demonstrate that the Council is adamant that these criminal acts will not go unpunished.
Third, we must insist on time-bound action plans to include commitments to end attacks on schools, including attacks against students or education personnel. And finally, we must demand that all parties refrain from actions that impede education, including the use of schools for military purposes.
Depriving children of the right to education and of the right to be safe as they learn is to deprive them of the right to a real future. I am confident that you do comprehend this problem, and that you will act," she said.
HH Sheikha Moza stressed that depriving children from their right to an education means depriving them from a promising future. "I am confident that you do comprehend this problem, and that you will act," she said.
Addressing the members of the council, HH Sheikha Moza added: "You (members of the council) have an enormous opportunity to rescue children from attack and reconnect them to a greater future. You have the power; I urge you to use it."