Educating Refugee Children in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan

Maya, 9, reads a school textbook in her family home. She enjoys attending her local public school in izmir, on turkey’s west coast, where she is one of four Syrian students in her class. © 2015 Stephanie Gee/Human Rights Watch

(New York) – Human Rights Watch has created a dedicated webpage on access to education for Syrian refugee children, whose school year begins this month, in advance of the New York summits on the global refugee and migration crisis. In addition to the latest Human Rights Watch findings, statistics, and recommendations, the webpage contains numerous links to videos and photos for journalistic use.

The new Human Rights Watch publication on the subject, “Education for Syrian Refugee Children: What Donors and Host Countries Should Do,” is based on extensive research in Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan. More than half of the 1.5 million school-age Syrian refugee children living in these countries do not have access to formal education.

US President Barack Obama’s September 20, 2016, Leaders’ Summit on Refugees will seek pledges to enroll one million refugee children in school, but more than 3.5 million refugee children are out of school around the world.

“World leaders should commit to ensure that all refugee children receive their basic right to an education, not just a lucky fraction,” said Bill Van Esveld, senior children’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “World leaders need to take action so that the right to education of all children is fulfilled.”