In conflicts around the world, schools, students, and teachers are under attack. When schools are destroyed or students and teachers are threatened, children often drop out of school and don’t come back. Others continue amid violence and fear. Sometimes lives are lost; education is always a casualty.

Police and prosecutors in Uganda have turned a blind eye to the killings of at least nine people by security forces during protests in April 2011, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch issued a video in which relatives of the victims explain the impact on their families and their struggle to secure justice and compensation.

The Libyan government should take urgent steps to stop serious and ongoing human rights violations against inhabitants of the town of Tawergha, who are widely viewed as having supported Muammar Gaddafi. The forced displacement of roughly 40,000 people, arbitrary detentions, torture, and killings are widespread, systematic, and sufficiently organized to be crimes against humanity and should be condemned by the United Nations Security Council. Newly released satellite imagery analysis shows the systematic destruction of large swaths of the town by arson and targeted demolitions after the fighting there had stopped in mid-2011. The analysis identified 1,690 damaged or destroyed structures after the cessation of hostilities, more than 90 percent of which appear damaged by fire. The imagery and Human Rights Watch's repeated observations of looted and burned buildings in Tawergha strongly suggest that the widespread and systematic destruction was intended to prevent residents from returning. 

Almost half of South Sudanese girls between ages 15 and 19 are married, some as young as age 12. An egregious violation of women and girls’ human rights, child marriage in South Sudan exacerbates the country’s high levels of poverty, low levels of literacy, pronounced gender gaps in education, and soaring rates of maternal mortality—currently among the highest in the world.
  
 Many families in South Sudan see child marriage as a means of accessing cattle, money, and other gifts by transferring wealth through the traditional payment of dowries. The practice of child marriage negatively shapes the experiences, status, and security of South Sudanese women and girls; violates their right to health, education, physical integrity, and to marry with free consent; and limits their progress and capacity to participate in all spheres of life.
  
 If the government, assisted by its development partners, does not combat child marriage it could have serious implications for South Sudan’s future development. Strong measures are needed to ensure protection for victims of child marriage and their access to effective support services, the development and implementation of guidelines for a coordinated government response, and comprehensive reform of South Sudanese marriage laws so that gender equality is a cornerstone of the country’s development agenda.