Summary
There started to be a phobia of school. Teachers were informants. Families would say, “Don’t talk to your teachers,” or would just keep students home. A big portion of families would not send their kids to school.
—Mostafa, guidance counselor at a boys’ high school in Nimr, Daraa governorate, who fled to Jordan, November 2012
In Syria’s brutal and protracted armed conflict, children have suffered alongside the rest of the population. Many have been killed and wounded as their hometowns have been transformed into warzones. They have endured torture and inhumane conditions in government detention. And they have been tested by severe shortages of humanitarian aid and inadequate medical care.
The government of President Bashar al-Assad has committed widespread human rights violations against the civilian population generally. But it has also carried out unlawful policies and practices targeting students and their schools. Witnesses from six schools in the Daraa, Homs, and the Damascus suburbs told Human Rights Watch that authorities sent security officers and used school officials to interrogate students about their political views and alleged anti-government activities by students and their parents. Witnesses and students from the Damascus suburbs and Daraa described how security forces and pro-government militias used excessive force, even gunfire, against three peaceful student demonstrations.
In combat zones, the Syrian armed forces committed apparent laws of war violations by conducting ground and air strikes against schools that were not being used for military purposes. And they deployed forces and pro-government armed groups in schools, endangering students or depriving them of their right to education. Opposition armed groups have contributed to the danger to students by deploying their forces in or very close to functioning schools.
This report documents practices by government and opposition forces that threaten the lives of students, teachers, and school officials and endanger the learning environment. Human Rights Watch’s findings are based on more than 70 interviews conducted between October and December 2012. Interviewees included 16 students, 16 educators, and 22 parents of schoolchildren, all of whom had fled Syria between March 2011—when the uprising began—and December 2012. A few of the interviews were conducted by Skype or telephone, but most were conducted in Jordan. Therefore, our findings reflect the experiences of families in the governorate of Daraa, where many of Jordan’s Syrian refugees originate, as well as the experiences of those in the Homs, Damascus, and the Damascus suburbs governorates, from where others fled.
Students and teachers from the Daraa, Homs, and Damascus suburbs governorates told Human Rights Watch that teachers and security agents interrogated students inside their schools about their political beliefs, their participation in anti-government protests, and the activities of their family members. Students said that admitting participation in activities deemed anti-government could result in a beating or other abuses.
Government forces and shabiha, pro-government armed groups, assaulted and sometimes fired on anti-government, student-organized protest marches that students staged at the end of their school day. They also entered schools to arrest students, sometimes assaulting students and teachers, and firing guns in the air, terrifying the students.
Government forces and shabiha also fired upon schools, including schools still in use as educational institutions. Salma, a high school student from Daraa, described hiding underneath her desk while machine gun fire hit her school walls. Marwan, a 12-year-old student, also from Daraa, said that he ran for safety as tank shells struck his school building.
Syrian government air force fighter jets and helicopters dropped bombs—including what appeared to be improvised “barrel bombs” and incendiary weapons—on school buildings, causing extensive damage. Human Rights Watch documented two air strikes on school buildings. Witnesses interviewed said there were no opposition forces in or near the schools, suggesting that the attacks were unlawful. In addition to these incidents, Human Rights Watch collected several additional witness accounts describing the aftermath of air strikes on school buildings, but was not able to confirm the details of those strikes’ circumstances.
Two Syrian Air Force pilots who had defected to the opposition told Human Rights Watch that they received frequent orders to bomb civilian areas. They said that the methods used—dropping barrel bombs and other munitions from airplane holds—meant that those deploying the weapons had little or no ability to direct them towards specific targets. In its February 5, 2013 report, the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Syria documented government attacks on more than 17 schools and noted that “anti-Government forces were present in some instances.”
Government forces and shabiha deployed in schools in each of the four governorates from which Human Rights Watch interviewed refugees—Homs, Damascus, the Damascus suburbs, and Daraa—and used them as bases, barracks, sniper posts, and detention centers. Sometimes soldiers only used schools for a very short duration, while at other times, they occupied schools for prolonged and indefinite periods. Schools were used both after students had ceased to study there and while they continued to attend classes.
Opposition armed forces used schools in the Daraa and Homs governorates for military purposes. In its February 2013 report, the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria stated, “anti-Government armed groups frequently use schools as barracks or offices. These occupations are not always justified by military necessity, and have spread the belief that schools are not safe.”
Military forces—whether national armed forces or non-state armed groups—that deploy in schools or otherwise use them for military purposes, make those schools legitimate targets under the laws of armed conflict. When the schools are still being used, such deployments put students and school personnel at risk of attack, violating the international humanitarian law requirement to take all feasible precautions to protect the civilian population and civilian objects against the effects of attacks.
In December 2012, the Syrian Ministry of Education reported that 2,362 schools in Syria—more than 10 percent of Syria’s approximately 22,000 schools—had been damaged or looted, while 1,468 schools were being used to house internally displaced persons. On December 29, Syria’s Local Coordination Committees, a network of opposition activists, announced that at least 3,873 schools throughout the country had been damaged, 450 of which were entirely destroyed and will need complete reconstruction.
Long-term military deployments in schools also violate the right of children to education under international human rights law, which remains applicable in wartime. The teachers and school principals interviewed by Human Rights Watch said that enrollment dropped by at least 50 percent since the conflict began. Many reported dramatically lower attendance rates. In February 2013, the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria stated that “[s]chool attendances ranges from 38 to 100 percent across Government controlled areas,” and that attendance “appears severely limited” in opposition-controlled areas. In November 2012, the Ministry of Education announced that only 14 percent of children could attend school in the northern Aleppo governorate, where the fighting has been particularly intense.
As schools have become too risky for students to attend, communities and activists across the country have started informal community schools or clandestine learning programs. These fledgling efforts suffer from inadequate resources. Students who had to leave school because of the conflict told Human Rights Watch that they became child laborers, child soldiers, or helpers for the armed opposition. Several girls between 16 and 17 who dropped out of school because it was no longer safe said they married out of economic need or for lack of other safe options.
To protect the basic human rights of children, including their right to education, the Syrian government should immediately cease using teachers and members of the security forces to interrogate students about their views and activities and those of their families. All cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of students should immediately stop. Those responsible for students being mistreated, assaulted, or fired upon should be investigated and appropriately disciplined or prosecuted.
All parties to the conflict in Syria should respect the laws of war, including those laws as they relate to schools. Attacks against schools that are not being used for military purposes should be stopped. Syrian government forces and shabiha and opposition armed groups should take all feasible precautions to protect schools under their control against the effects of attack, and move students and other civilians away from military forces. When military forces use schools, thereby making them legitimate military targets, students should be transferred to safer locations to continue their education.
The international community should protect Syrian children’s right to education by supporting educational initiatives and remedial measures throughout Syria, including in areas controlled by the opposition.
