UN education envoy seeks special fund for schooling during crises

The UN special envoy for education on Thursday campaigned to fund education in emergencies, citing crises in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, saying it has been the worst year for child refugees since the end of World War II.

"I'm here to make the case because of the deteriorating situation affecting children around the world for a new humanitarian fund for education in emergencies," said former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who was appointed the UN special envoy for education in July 2012. "Alarming and shocking statistics that are now available make the case for urgent action that I hope will be agreed in the next few weeks."

According to him, this is the worst year for children displaced within their own countries. It's also the worst year since 1945 for the number of child refugees who are outside their own country and it's the worst year for the attacks on schools to prevent young children from getting their education, he said at a press conference here.

"So this is not a year of the child; this is a year of fear affecting millions of children," Brown said. "There are 19 million children who have been internally displaced within the past 12 months. That is half the citizens of the world that have been displaced because of conflicts and other emergencies. That is bigger than the population of Sweden, Norway and Denmark taken together."

He said there are 8.3 million child refugees, globally, "nearly half the population of all refugees, the equivalent to the populations of Kuwait, Qatar and Oman combined, and more than 825, 000 children are believed being trafficked."

"That is an alarming figure in itself but it shows that it is an open season for traffickers in a whole series of places around the world," Brown told reporters here, adding that aid workers dealing with slavery say there are 8.6 million children living in slave conditions in one way or another.

He said 5 million girls under the age of 15 will be married this year, "and of course we already know there are 168 million children who are in one form of child labor or another."

"What is alarming is that this is not just one or two countries where children are gravely at risk," Brown said. "We can trace the threat to children through Syria, Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, because of Syrian refugees, Iraq, South Sudan, Burundi, northern Nigeria, of course Burma (Myanmar) where there are a large number of child refugees.

Brown said that in the midst of the fallout from the earthquake in Nepal, the government is warning half a million girls in the country who are now on the streets to be aware of suspicious gangs trying to recruit them and take them out of Nepal and into India.

The crises examples lead to one answer, and that is "to offer them full-time education at school," he said. "The best protection for many of the girls in particular is that there are safe schools that they can go to. The best precaution against children being trafficked is that we keep a regular eye on what is happening to them is attendance at school."

"Not only does that school offer opportunity to children and offer them the possibility of greater safety but in a crisis situation, an emergency, while shelter and health care and food are basic to the survival of these children, it is education, the chance that they can go to school, return to what might be a more normal life plan for the future, it is education that gives them hope," Brown said.

There are now more than 20 million children who are out of schools in conflict zones and are being deprived of education and protection. Brown set no amount for such a fund but said the concept was discussed at UNESCO's World Education Forum in South Korea earlier this week and the Norwegian government said it would host a special conference on the fund in July.

"Only 2 percent of humanitarian aid at the moment goes to education and that means that education for children who are sometimes in conflict zones or are refugees for more than 10 years, the whole period of their schooling, that means that these children fall completely through the net," Brown said. "Normal funds for development are not usually available when it comes to dealing with emergencies because funds have been allocated in advance. So to fill this gap we now need a humanitarian fund for education in emergencies." Endite