Introduction
Ensuring children's and young people's access to education is increasingly recognized as an important part of emergency humanitarian response, particularly during mass displacement and natural disasters.[1] Quality education in emergencies can provide lifesaving information, protect children physically, for example, from trafficking and recruitment by armed groups, and mitigate psychosocial trauma. In the long term it can promote peace and post-conflict reconstruction and help young people develop skills and qualifications to avoid poverty.[2] Education is also a basic right.[3]
Although closely related to emergency response, the actual protection of education from attack in areas of ongoing conflict - especially when schools or universities, teachers, and students are targeted - is only now receiving more systematic attention. Attacks on education in Afghanistan, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gaza, India, Sudan, southern Thailand, and elsewhere highlight the urgent need to protect education in conflict.[4] Accurate information about both individual attacks and national patterns is critical to providing effective protection. But such information is often lacking. Attacks may occur in remote or insecure areas where observers are unable or unwilling to go, ongoing conflict or other acts of violence may eclipse the pattern of education-related attacks, and state governments may be unable or unwilling to monitor. As a result, the real nature of who and what is targeted, the reasons behind attacks, and trends over time are often not well understood.
A number of international and country-level mechanisms do capture some attacks on education. But many attacks fall outside the scope or current focus of these structures. Moreover, the act of monitoring may not ensure that appropriate information is collected or that it is shared in a way that facilitates an effective response.
This paper will argue that well-designed and effective monitoring is crucial for at least three purposes: 1) for developing early warning systems and other measures to prevent attacks from taking place; 2) for implementing a rapid response capacity to minimize the impact of attacks, keep students and educators safe, and preserve children's access to education; and 3) for holding those responsible for attacks accountable. For monitoring to assist these goals, it must be designed with them in mind and the information reported accurately and efficiently to actors who can respond.
In examining these issues, this paper first describes existing monitoring and reporting mechanisms. Second, the relationship of monitoring and reporting to each of the three goals - prevention/early warning, rapid response, and accountability - is examined. Around each goal, a few key indicators are suggested. Third, challenges - both logistical and ethical - are discussed that should be anticipated when designing monitoring systems. Finally, gaps in existing monitoring and reporting mechanisms in relation to these goals are highlighted and several proposals advanced for closing these gaps.
As used in this paper, monitoring refers to the systematic collection of information about incidents and the analysis of that information. This form of monitoring would complement but differ from the monitoring of education service provision.
Although there is no single agreed-upon definition of ‘attacks on education,' the phrase is used here consistent with the April 2009 Presidential Statement of the UN Security Council on children and armed conflict regarding ‘attacks or threats of attacks on school children or teachers as such, the use of schools for military operations, and attacks on schools that are prohibited by applicable international law'.[5] The lack of agreement over what constitutes an attack on education corresponds with the lack of an agreed-upon set of indicators for attacks. (A set of such indicators for the UN-led Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism (MRM) on Children and Armed Conflict, discussed below, has been in draft form for several years.) The indicators proposed in this paper draw upon the experience of the author and colleagues at Human Rights Watch in documenting attacks on education in Afghanistan and elsewhere; conversations with practitioners, including at the 2009 UNESCO-hosted international expert seminar on ‘Protecting Education from Attack'; and review of relevant documents.[6]
Existing monitoring and reporting mechanisms and their limits
Governments, various UN bodies, certain NGOs, and others have mandates that should lead them to monitor and respond to attacks on education. While governments and the UN-led Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism (MRM) on Children and Armed Conflict have the most explicit mandate, their coverage is far from comprehensive and other bodies are important, particularly where the government lacks the will or capacity or where the MRM is not present or is not covering attacks on education.
Governments
Governments, which are obligated to ensure the right to education, should be in the best position to monitor attacks, given their presence throughout the country. Education ministries should as a matter of course collect basic education information, monitor fluctuation in attendance, and track violence and threats in state-run schools; their local employees may also be well-placed to learn of attacks on non-government schools. Police, prosecutors, and criminal courts, in turn, should investigate and prosecute attacks. Where established, national human rights commissions could also take up school attacks. In Colombia the early warning system of the Ombudsman's office monitors the human rights situation in many areas with the goal of preventing abuses. It has played a key role in reporting threats to communities and individuals, including trade unionists among whom are teachers. However, other Colombian government authorities have at times ignored the risk reports, failing to take necessary measures to prevent abuses.[7]
However, governments in conflict may lack the capacity or will to monitor. Education departments may not be in regular communication with or even paying some staff, and governments may not have security services stationed in certain areas. For example, in 2005 the Afghan Ministry of Education was not only prevented by security threats from visiting many areas where schools were attacked, it also intentionally did not collect information about attacks. One explanation came from a deputy minister: ‘It will have a negative effect on our morale'.[8] (The ministry has since begun tracking attacks on schools, teachers, and students and resulting school closures.) In contrast, the government of Thailand issues intermittent press reports on numbers of insurgent killings of teachers and school burnings in the country's southern provinces, suggesting that it is tracking these events centrally.[9]
In some instances, governments or their local affiliates may be implicated in attacks. For example, Human Rights Watch documented attacks on schools in Afghanistan in areas dominated by forces allied with warlords with a history of abuse and hostility to girls' education who were then serving in the Afghan Parliament.[10] In Thailand the army has raided private Islamic schools while militants have attacked government schools and killed teachers and students.[11] In several states in India, police and paramilitary police forces are taking over and occupying schools as part of their counter-insurgency efforts against the Naxalites, who are in turn directly targeting and blowing up government schools.[12]
Even when governments do monitor, the quality of information may be inadequate. For example, the Afghan education ministry's database suffers from both under-reporting and double counting, and in some cases lacks critical information such as school name or date of attack.[13] Government bodies, including security services, may also be subject to political influence or unwilling to release information publicly or quickly enough for NGOs and other service providers to respond. Government monitoring is thus both critical and often insufficient.
UN bodies
Various UN bodies with mandates related to human rights, children's development and survival, and children in armed conflict should monitor and report on attacks on education. UNICEF is mandated to advocate for the protection of children's rights and plays a critical role in promoting education. Yet its monitoring and reporting are inconsistent: in Afghanistan, for example, the country office was slow to embrace monitoring but at the time of writing was supporting the government in its education protection strategy; in India UNICEF is not monitoring school attacks in the Naxal conflict. UNESCO, whose mandate covers education at all levels, maintains an education and conflict desk, has published a report on attacks (with another in process for 2010), and runs field offices in some conflict settings; its field presence is far smaller than UNICEF's and these offices rarely take up the issue.
In emergencies, the Interagency Standing Committee (IASC) Protection and Education Clusters coordinate humanitarian response at the field level and in Geneva; there is the potential for one or both of these clusters to take up this issue explicitly. The INEE Minimum Standards, which were under revision at the time of writing, also hold potential for promoting more consistent assessment and monitoring.[14] The revised standards handbook will incorporate strengthened indicators and guidance notes for the protection of education. Additionally, the human rights and child protection components of peacekeeping operations may also collect information about attacks and intervene with authorities. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), which often plays a coordinating role in the field, reports that while UN and humanitarian agencies may monitor attacks to the extent that they affect humanitarian access, reporting on school attacks is typically anecdotal and information is not collected consistently over time.[15]
The UN-led Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism (MRM) on Children and Armed Conflict, established by Security Council Resolution 1612 in 2005, now has an explicit mandate to monitor attacks on schools, teachers, and students.[16] The MRM is established only in countries named by the Secretary-General in the annexes of his annual reports to the Security Council on children and armed conflict where, in situations of armed conflict, children are recruited and used as soldiers or, since August 2009, killed and maimed or subjected to grave sexual violence.[17] Once established, the MRM monitors six grave violations against children in armed conflict, including attacks on schools. Information is fed into the MRM through interagency task forces at the field level who report to a headquarters-level task force chaired by the Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) on Children and Armed Conflict. The Special Representative, in turn, reports to the UN Secretary-General, who reports to the Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict, which makes recommendations for action to the Security Council. The MRM has given far less attention to education than to other violations against children, and countries such as Thailand and India, each of which suffers attacks on education, are not presently covered.[18] The mechanism is also restricted to children: attacks on tertiary and other forms of adult education are not covered. Nevertheless, the MRM's successes around the recruitment and use of children as soldiers demonstrate its significant value for addressing violations against children in armed conflict.[19]
The SRSG on Children and Armed Conflict, in addition to her role with the monitoring and reporting mechanism, can collect information on attacks, conduct country visits, and intervene publicly or privately with governments.[20]
The Committee on the Rights of the Child, through its periodic review of country compliance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, reviews violations of the right to education, including attacks on schools, teachers, and students, and makes recommendations to states.[21] In 2008 the Committee held a day of general discussion on education in emergencies at the conclusion of which it urged states parties: ‘to ensure that schools are protected from military attacks or seizure by militants; or use as centres for recruitment[;]...to criminalize attacks on schools as war crimes in accordance with article 8(2)(b) (ix) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and to prevent and combat impunity.'[22] The UN Human Rights Council through the universal periodic review process could request information and report on attacks on education. The Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education, who dedicated his 2008 annual report to education in emergencies, can monitor and report on such attacks through country visits, individual urgent complaints, letters to governments, and annual reports.[23]
Non-governmental organizations and others
Domestic and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) play a particularly important role in drawing attention to overlooked attacks, including where the government is implicated or unwilling to respond and the UN is either not present or not monitoring. A distinction should be made, however, between purely human rights NGOs and service providers that may also have a protection mandate. NGOs dedicated to running education programmes may be the main education providers in conflict areas and thus may have good access to information. However, they may lack the mandate and skills to monitor, compile, analyze, and report information, especially information that goes beyond the scope of programme operation. Moreover, publicly monitoring and reporting may put their programmes and staff at risk. But where these risks are managed, education NGOs may be well-placed to use the information they collect to respond.
Human rights NGOs, although they may lack the resources to monitor attacks indefinitely or respond programmatically, may enjoy the mandate and greater freedom to speak openly and draw attention to the problem, pressing others to act and advocating around particular cases. Staff should also be trained in collecting information accurately and ethically.
Working together, human rights and humanitarian organizations may be especially effective. For example, the Partnerships for Protecting Children in Armed Conflict (PPCC), established in 2005, is a network of Nepali and international organizations that not only monitors violations of children's right to education, including conflict-related violations, but also uses the information for programming and advocacy. In addition, the network supplies its information to the national MRM task force on children and armed conflict (explained above).[24]
Additionally, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is charged with monitoring the application of international humanitarian law, or the ‘laws of war.' These laws prohibit military attacks that target civilian objects, including schools, or civilians, including educational personnel and students, in both international and non-international armed conflicts.[25] While the ICRC only rarely makes its findings public and is not present in all areas, it did, for example, express concern about the use of health facilities for voter registration and polling in the run up to the 2009 Afghan elections, a concern that it could have similarly raised around the use of schools.[26]
Other valuable sources of information include the media, academic reports, and research institutes or think tanks that track incidents of terrorism, including attacks on education.
Monitoring and reporting for prevention/early warning
An important part of addressing attacks on educational institutions, teachers, and students is preventing them from occurring in the first place. Prevention may include enhancing community participation, improving the physical protection of school buildings and routes to school, exploring alternative schools sites and schedules, prohibiting the use of schools for any military or police purpose, and negotiating schools as conflict-free or neutral zones.[27] Prevention is also a part of attack response, as students are more likely to return if they have confidence that steps have been taken to avoid subsequent attacks.
Accurate information is essential to preventive measures. This includes which educational institutions are most at risk, who is being targeted, why, and how. Answering these questions requires knowing basic facts about schools: where they are, who runs and attends them, and how students and teachers get there. The collection of this data may be disrupted by conflict.[28] Monitoring can also reveal trends over time and place. For example, in Afghanistan, attacks have tended to decrease in the winter with bad weather and increase in the spring as the snows melt and the school year begins in most places.
Risk factors vary by locale and could include aspects inherent to the school, for example, the source of funding or other sponsorship (government, non-government, domestic, or foreign), the content of the curriculum, the sex of students or teachers, and the school's location (near military targets, accessible to attackers, remote from the community, distant from students' homes). External factors may include the attitude of local power holders to education, the extent to which government security forces can secure the area where the school is located, and the intensity of the general conflict. Also relevant is the security of routes and methods of transportation taken by students and teachers.
Some factors, of course, change with the political climate, the weather, the school year, and the conflict itself. Accordingly, in addition to general prevention, an early warning system could identify when targeted measures are needed. For this, a context-specific set of indicators that might predict an attack could be developed. Appropriate indicators may include threats, which would not necessarily be collected in post-attack monitoring; the development of these indicators may be informed by collecting information about events preceding previous attacks. For example, in Afghanistan some attacks have been preceded by pamphlets - so-called night letters - warning residents not to send their children to school, to educate girls, or to associate with the Afghan government or foreigners. In other areas, increased movements by militants or public statements against the government or education may indicate the likelihood of an attack. The presence, even temporary, of state or international security forces or the use of a school by the government for other purposes such as polling may also provoke attacks in some environments. For example, in Chhattisgarh state in India, Naxalites have justified the destruction of schools on the grounds that they were used by police and state-supported anti-Maoist vigilante groups.[29] In Afghanistan before the 2009 elections, a group of humanitarian agencies and the Minister of Education used data on attacks to call for schools to be used as polling places only as a last resort; according to the ministry, 26 of the 2,742 schools used as polling places were attacked on election day.[30]
Monitoring and reporting for rapid response
Responding to an attack immediately is important for mitigating its effects and getting students back to school or university as quickly as possible. Although in some areas, security is simply too dire to permit an immediate return, in others, a swift and strategic response from authorities can avoid the school remaining shuttered or reopening with far fewer students and teachers. Rapid response may include repairing infrastructure and replacing school materials, as well as putting in place new steps to prevent future attacks and reassure students, teachers, and the community.[31]
A rapid response is, of course, impossible if the responding body is unaware that an attack has taken place. UNICEF education officials in Afghanistan in 2005, for example, told Human Rights Watch that their policy was to provide tents and to replace damaged textbooks and furniture within five days. However, they relied on their zonal offices for information and thus never learned of the vast majority of attacks, even those widely reported in the press.[32] Accordingly, it is important that a monitoring and reporting mechanism have an ‘alert' component, that it be able to collect and transmit quickly the basic information that an attack has occurred, the geographic location, and the extent of the damage. In addition to immediate damage repair, information about who is responsible and the reasons behind a particular attack can help to tailor steps to prevent future attacks.[33]
When the school or university reopens, it is important to monitor any drop in student and teacher attendance, not only in the school itself but in surrounding schools that may fear similar attacks. Such monitoring may not happen automatically through education departments if, for example, schools only monitor annual enrolment numbers. If decreased attendance is noted and among whom (for example, students of a single sex, students who live far away or off main roads, students of a particular ethnic or linguistic group), it may then be possible to address specific barriers and encourage return.
Monitoring and reporting for accountability
Documenting who is responsible, what they did, and how they did it is important for holding perpetrators of attacks accountable and deterring future attacks.[34] Accountability may come in the form of actual criminal prosecution, but attacks often occur where the justice system is too weak to reliably investigate, prosecute, and punish. Even in these cases, information collection remains valuable for future accountability if the area stabilizes, for increasing the political cost of attacks including public pressure or shaming of perpetrators, or, in rare cases, accountability in international fora. Investigations are also important for ensuring the integrity of public accusations regarding responsibility for attacks.
Collecting information about responsibility can be far more challenging than documenting the mere fact of an attack. Witnesses may fear retaliation, especially when the local power holders (whether allied with the government or not) are themselves responsible. Evidence that is admissible in a court or that can withstand the challenge of a motivated and named individual in the public eye must be of a higher quality and level of detail than, for example, that required for trend analysis, and may be harder to collect. However, even if most attacks cannot be adequately investigated and prosecuted in an actual court or the court of public opinion, taking up a few cases may deter future crimes.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) can prosecute war crimes committed on or after July 1, 2002, which can include attacks on schools (that are not military objects), teachers, and students.[35] NGOs and members of the public can submit communications and complaints which the court can examine. Although the court takes up only a very few cases, and then only when national courts are unwilling or unable to prosecute, these can have a deterrent effect. As of the time of writing, attacks on schools had not been included among the charges in any case before the ICC.[36]
Logistical and ethical challenges to monitoring and reporting
Effective monitoring and reporting is likely to encounter various logistical and ethical challenges. These include three related issues: 1) access to areas where attacks occur, 2) collecting reliable information, and 3) the risk to monitors or sources of information.
First, areas most vulnerable to attacks and where it is most necessary to collect information are often the least accessible because of poor security or poor infrastructure, such as roads and communication services. For example, a staff member of an Afghan NGO that had weathered serious security problems explained to Human Rights Watch why he had argued against expanding an education programme to a particular province: ‘I said, "... we will have to hire staff two times: we will send staff and they will be killed." This is not a joke'.[37]
Second-hand reports may be scant and unreliable; on-site visits and eyewitness interviews are critical. The press, which although varied in its reliability can be one avenue for learning about attacks for further investigation, faces similar constraints.
Where it is truly impossible to conduct on-site investigations, information may be collected remotely by speaking with informed persons who have recently been in the area, establishing networks of local informants who can transmit information out, and bringing witnesses to safer locations. Each of these solutions has a potential cost to the information's accuracy: witnesses may be afraid to give information over the phone and may be at risk of surveillance, relying on second-hand information may compromise its reliability, and witnesses who can travel out may not necessarily be the most informed and in some areas may be mainly male and adult. Regarding the last point, understanding the concerns of those most at risk, including children and female teachers in remote communities, is important for designing protective measures that will overcome security barriers that prevent them from going to school. It should be noted, however, that persons may speak more freely outside areas controlled by attackers and that for outside monitors to visit witnesses in their home areas may identify them and place them at risk.
In addition to impeding the collection of first-hand information, security and infrastructure barriers may also make it difficult to confirm reports via multiple sources. Even if it is impossible to obtain a precise count of attacks or to verify each of them independently, such information may still demonstrate patterns and trends that can usefully inform a response.
Where access is possible, police, security services, or others investigating for accountability purposes may lack basic forensic skills including in conducting investigations; record keeping; and collecting, securing, and keeping a chain of evidence.
Some information, for example, about militant activity or perpetrators of attacks, will be sensitive. Eyewitnesses, other local contacts, or outsiders collecting the information may be put at risk by gathering and sharing it. Those who live or work in the community may fear the perpetrators. Victims of violence may be at risk of retraumatization. Although some of the remote collection methods suggested above may help address security risks, using only national or local contacts to lower the profile of collectors may endanger those individuals. Maintaining the confidentiality of contacts may be difficult if the information is shared with a large or corrupt government bureaucracy. These risks underscore the importance of assessing what information is truly important to collect and where excessive risk requires refraining from collecting information.
Those with the most access to information may lack the skills to monitor or may even be motivated to deny the problem. Education officials or parties running education projects may wish to portray success to donors and not endanger their funding or own jobs by exposing attacks that undermine their ability to work. For example, Human Rights Watch found, while investigating attacks on education in Afghanistan in 2005, that some Afghan NGO and UN staff working on education projects were reluctant to acknowledge that attacks were taking place or that general insecurity had made it impossible for them to work in some areas. This may have reflected fear of Taliban and other armed groups, concern for their own jobs, and pressure to maintain a positive picture of education in Afghanistan.[38] Establishing mandatory reporting systems, providing dedicated monitors screened for neutrality and independence, and training them in ethics and methodology may help overcome these barriers.
Although certain risks to local residents and monitors may be unacceptable, incurring even an acceptable level of risk demands that the information be used for a purpose, that the risk not be incurred for nothing. Similarly, the need to collect information and understand the problem must not be used as an excuse to unduly delay taking action. This requires not only the resources and political will to respond: poor security that facilitates attacks may also inhibit prevention and rapid response. Where some response - including a form of accountability - remains possible, this can justify monitoring efforts.
Conclusion: Addressing the gaps in monitoring and reporting on attacks on education
If monitoring and reporting systems were established at the country level designed in such a way as to promote prevention/early warning, rapid response, and accountability for attacks on education, the protection of schools, teachers, and students would potentially be enhanced and children's access to education likely improved. At the international level, a comprehensive picture of attacks worldwide, trends, and hotspots, and comparative data would also enhance international response towards these three goals.[39]
The patchwork of current monitoring structures reflects recent progress but leaves significant gaps. How could monitoring be more comprehensive and more effective? While no single structure could fulfil every function, several activities might help. First, better coordination among existing mechanisms is needed. This would assist at the country level, for example, in defining who will take the lead in monitoring and where dedicated resources and training are needed. Coordination could also be improved between UN agencies and the office of the SRSG on Children and Armed Conflict about who is responsible for collecting information about attacks for countries where no monitoring and reporting mechanism (MRM) exists.
Second, reaching agreement on and widely distributing a set of standardized indicators that includes factors relevant for prevention, response, and accountability would assist compiling and sharing information. Such indicators could be based on the draft indicators for the MRM, although these do not address higher education, for which additional indicators will be needed. The Education Cluster is currently drafting a Joint Needs Assessment Toolkit that could promote more consistent data collection if the relevant indicators are included.
Third, monitoring of attacks on education by interagency taskforces under the Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism (MRM) on Children and Armed Conflict could be improved. The Security Council's April 2009 Presidential Statement, noted above, by using a broader definition of attacks on education, and the Council's August 2009 Resolution 1882 by expanding the trigger beyond child soldiers to situations of sexual violence and killing and maiming of children, provide the potential to cover more countries where education is attacked and for interagency task forces to monitor a more expansive range of education-related violations in the field. This information could promote more and improved recommendations from the Security Council Working Group and stronger action from the Security Council specifically around attacks on education.
Fourth, the problem of monitoring attacks in countries such as India and Thailand where there is no MRM must be addressed. Simply facilitating the establishment of an MRM in such countries, including through expanding the MRM trigger mechanism to include attacks on education, may help. In addition, the requirement that all information be ‘UN verified' for a country to be listed and an MRM established could be reconsidered where UN agencies are not present or are unwilling or unable to collect information, given that Security Council Resolution 1612 establishing the MRM only requires that information be ‘timely, objective, accurate and reliable.' However, it should be recognized that the MRM will not be comprehensive and that other forms of monitoring will remain needed.
Fifth, information collected could be more systematically provided to other UN structures such as the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the Human Rights Council, and the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education as well as to the International Criminal Court. The bodies could, in turn, do more to solicit and act upon information about attacks on education. The Committee on the Rights of the Child, following its day of general discussion on education in emergencies, is well-positioned to prepare a general comment on the topic that would clarify and strengthen the human rights prohibition on attacks. A general comment would, in turn, encourage more country reporting on the topic.
Finally, militaries, diplomats, political affairs offices, and other peace and security institutions should be encouraged to view - and thus monitor - access to and attacks on education at all levels as a critical measurement of security.[40]
Growing attention to attacks on education presents a clear opportunity to governments, international institutions, and non-governmental bodies to improve the protection of schools, teachers, and students. Effective monitoring and reporting is a vital aspect of this.
[1] United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), Core Commitments for Children in Emergencies
(New York: UNICEF, 2005),
http://www.unicef.org/publications/files/CCC_EMERG_E_revised7.pdf (accessed October 7, 2009); and Margaret Sinclair, Planning Education In and After Emergencies (Paris: UNESCO-IIEP, 2002).
[2] Save the Children, Rewrite the Future: Education in Emergencies, Policy Brief (Save the Children, 2009), http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/en/docs/Education_in_emergencies_brief_final.pdf (accessed October 7, 2009); and Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE), "About Education in Emergencies,"
http://www.ineesite.org/index.php/post/about_education_in_emergencies1/ (accessed September 25, 2009).
[3] United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), Convention on the Rights of the Child, UNTS vol.1577, art. 28 (November 20, 1989), 3; and UNGA, International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, UNTS vol. 993, art.13 (December 16, 1966), 3. The right to education is set out in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by every country in the world except the United States and Somalia, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
[4] Save the Children, Rewrite the Future: Preventing Attacks on Schools, Policy Brief (Save the Children, 2009),
http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/en/docs/Attacks_on_schools_brief_final_(2).pdf (accessed October 7, 2009); Brendan O'Malley, Education under Attack: A Global Study on Targeted Political and Military Violence Against Education Staff, Students, Teachers, Union and Government Officials, and Institutions (Paris: UNESCO, 2007); Human Rights Watch (HRW), "Letter to President Barack Obama on Afghanistan," March 26, 2009, https://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/03/26/human-rights-watch-letter-president-barack-obama-afghanistan (accessed October 7, 2009); and HRW, "Thailand: Insurgents Target Teachers in the South," June 18, 2009, https://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/06/18/thailand-insurgents-target-teachers-south (accessed October 8, 2009).
[5] United Nations Security Council (UNSC), Presidential Statement on Children and Armed Conflict, S/PRST/2009/9 (UNSC, April 29, 2009).
[6] Human Rights Watch's previous monitoring of attacks on education differs from that proposed here: the organization's reporting has intended to expose the problem and reasons behind it and to promote accountability. It has not been designed specifically for the purpose of informing a programmatic response, and it has occurred over a defined period of time. However, practical lessons learned from Human Rights Watch's experience conducting field-based monitoring, maintaining databases of events, verifying and analyzing information, and addressing logistical and ethical challenges were drawn upon in developing this paper.
[7] HRW, World Report 2010 (New York: HRW, forthcoming 2010).
[8] HRW, Lessons in Terror.
[9] UNICEF, Everyday Fears: A Study of Children's Perceptions of Living in the Southern Border Areas of Thailand (Bangkok: UNICEF, 2008), http://www.unicef.org/thailand/Everyday_fears.pdf (accessed October 26, 2009), 1.
[10] HRW, Lessons in Terror; and HRW, ‘Killing You Is a Very Easy Thing for Us': Human Rights Abuses in Southeast Afghanistan (New York: HRW, 2003), https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/afghanistan0703.pdf (accessed October 6, 2009).
[11] HRW, "Thailand: Insurgents Target Teachers"; and HRW, No One Is Safe: Insurgent Attacks on Civilians in Thailand's Southern Border Provinces (New York: HRW, 2007).
[12] HRW, Sabotaged Schooling: Naxalite Attacks and Police Occupation of Schools in India's Bihar and Jharkhand States (New York: HRW, forthcoming).
[13] Glad, Marit, Knowledge on Fire: Attacks on Education in Afghanistan; Risks and Measures for Successful Mitigation, section 3.5 (CARE/World Bank/Afghan Ministry of Education, 2009); and Dana Burde, "Preventing violent attacks on education in Afghanistan: considering the role of community-based schools," in Protecting Education from Attack: A State-of-the-Art Review (Paris: UNESCO, 2010), 245-260.
[14] INEE, INEE Minimum Standards for Education in Emergencies, Chronic Crisis and Early Reconstruction (INEE, 2004).
[15] United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) and Policy Development and Studies Branch (PDSB), "Humanitarian Access" (presentation, September, 2009).
[16] UNSC, Resolution 1612, S/RES/1612 (2005); and UNSC, Resolution 1882. S/RES/1882 (2009).
[17] Ibid.
[18] Alec Wargo, "Overview of the MRM in Monitoring and Reporting of Attacks on Education through the Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism (MRM) on Children and Armed Conflict" (presentation, UNESCO International Expert Seminar Protecting Education from Attack, Paris, September 28, 2009. The office of the SRSG requires that information be ‘UN-verified' to be listed by the Secretary-General. In conflicts in India and Thailand, the UN has not itself verified the extensive evidence of the use of children as soldiers (and attacks on schools, teachers, and students).
[19] HRW, "Taking the Next Step: Strengthening the Security Council's Response to Sexual Violence and Attacks on Education in Armed Conflict," April 20, 2009, https://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/04/20/takin
g-next-step (accessed 6 October 6, 2009); and Katy Barnett and Anna Jefferys, Full of Promise: How the UN's Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism Can Better Protect Children, HPN Paper #62 (London: Overseas Development Institute, 2008).
[20] Alec Wargo, "Opportunities to Strengthen Monitoring and Reporting of Education-Related Violations" (presentation, UNESCO International Expert Seminar Protecting Education from Attack, Paris, September 28, 2009).
[21] This process not only involves monitoring by the Committee itself and governments that report to it but also encourages monitoring by NGOs, which can independently submit information to the Committee. The Committee has commented on attacks on education or military use of schools in at least four countries, including Burundi, Colombia, Ethiopia, and Moldova.
[22] Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC), "Day of General Discussion on ‘The Right of the Child to Education in Emergency Situations': Recommendations" (CRC, 49th Session, unedited version, October 3, 2008), http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/crc/docs/discussion/RecommendationsDGD2008.doc (accessed October 26, 2009).
[23] Vernor, Muñoz. Right to Education in Emergency Situations: Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education, A/HRC/8/10 (UN, 2008), http://www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/education/rapporteur/a
nnual.htm (accessed October 22, 2009).
[24] Nepal Partnerships for Protecting Children in Armed Conflict (PPCC), Nepal Partnerships for Protecting Children in Armed Conflict (n.d.).
[25] This is provided that none have become legal military objectives through military usage or directly participating in the hostilities. See ICRC, Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and Relating to the Protection of Victims of Non-International Armed Conflicts (Protocol II), 1125 UNTS 609, art. 13 (June 8, 1977), 3; and ICRC, Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (Fourth Geneva Convention), 75 UNTS 287 (August 12, 1949).
[26] IRIN News, "Afghanistan: Using Clinics as Polling Stations ‘Not a Good Idea' - ICRC," April 30, 2009, http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=84180 (accessed October 8, 2009).
[27] Christine Groneman, "Desk study on field-based mechanisms for protecting education from targeted attack," in Protecting Education from Attack: A State-of-the-Art Review (Paris: UNESCO, 2010), 227-244; Jackie Kirk and Rebecca Winthrop, "Home-Based Schooling: Access to Quality Education for Afghan Girls," Journal of Education for International Development 2, no. 1 (2005), http://www.equip123.net/JEID/articles/3/HomeBased
Schooling.pdf (accessed October 6, 2009); Dana Burde, "Weak State, Strong Community: Promoting Community Participation in Post-Conflict Countries," Current Issues in Comparative Education 6, no. 2 (2004), http://www.iiep.unesco.org/fileadmin/user_up%0Bload/Research_Highlights_Emergencies/62burde.pdf (accessed 6 October 2009); and INEE, INEE Minimum Standards.
[28] INEE, INEE Minimum Standards.
[29] HRW, Being Neutral Is Our Biggest Crime: Government, Vigilante, and Naxalite Abuses in India's Chhattisgarh State (New York: HRW, 2008), https://www.hrw.org/reports/2008/india0708/ (accessed October 6, 2009).
[30] IRIN News, "Afghanistan: Over 20 Schools Attacked on Election Day," August 24, 2009, http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=85831 (accessed October 8, 2009).
[31] Jonathan Penson and Kathryn Tomlinson, Rapid Response: Programming for Education Needs in Emergencies (Paris: UNESCO-IIEP, 2009), http://www.iiep.unesco.org/fileadmin/user_upload/Info_S
ervices_Publications/pdf/2009/RapidResponse.pdf (accessed October 6, 2009).
[32] HRW, Lessons in Terror.
[33] The INEE Minimum Standards state that the "Analysis of the causes and effects of the emergency is critical. If the problem is not correctly identified and understood then it will be difficult, if not impossible, to respond appropriately." (INEE, INEE Minimum Standards, 12).
[34] Bede Sheppard, "'Painful and inconvenient': accountability for attacks on education," in Protecting Education from Attack: A State-of-the-Art Review (Paris: UNESCO, 2010), 125-146.
[35] UNGA, Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, A/CONF. 183/9 (July 17, 1998, last amended January 2002).
[36] International Criminal Court (ICC), "All Cases," http://www.icc-cpi.int/Menus/ICC/Situations+and+C
ases/Cases/ (accessed October 26, 2009). By comparison, seven persons have been indicted for the enlistment, conscription, or use of child soldiers.
[37] HRW, Lessons in Terror.
[38] Ibid.
[39] See Vernor Muñoz, Right to Education in Emergency Situations.
[40] HRW, Lessons in Terror.
