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UN / ATTACKS AGAINST SCHOOLS
STORY: UN / ATTACKS AGAINST SCHOOLS
TRT: 01:55
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGES: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 10 SEPTEMBER 2020, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE - NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, exterior UN Headquarters
10 SEPTEMBER 2020, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, conference room with speakers on screen
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Virginia Gamba, United Nations Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict:
“I remind governments that they have a duty to protect education, even at times of war and pandemics. It is to be hoped that these measures and initiatives, including this open debate, will increase the momentum for action to improve the protection of schools and end attacks on education. Let us act now.”
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Virginia Gamba, United Nations Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict:
“The present pandemic has made things worse. Closed schools and crumbling economies generate push and pull factors that favour recruitment and use, sexual exploitation and child marriage. Lockdowns have restrained and diminished children’s access to essential services. Empty schools may be an incentive for parties to conflict to loot or use schools for military purposes.”
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Henrietta H. Fore, Executive Director, UNICEF:
“COVID-19 has disrupted learning for over one billion children worldwide. But at the same time, we must remember those who have no education waiting for them. Including many of the 75 million children who live in countries in conflict.”
6. Med shot, Council President
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Henrietta H. Fore, Executive Director, UNICEF:
“Out-of-school children — and children living in conflict generally — face a world of danger. They’re at higher risk of recruitment by armed forces or groups. Gender based violence. Child marriage and early pregnancy. Abuse and trafficking. And numbers cannot capture the heart-breaking cost to the spirits of these young people when their schools are attacked.”
8. Wide shot, conference room with Fore on screen
The Security Council today (10 Sep) issued a presidential statement reaffirming “its commitment to address the widespread impact of armed conflict on children, and the long-term consequences this has for durable peace, security and development.”
Briefing the Council via video teleconference, the Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, Virginia Gamba, reminded governments “that they have a duty to protect education, even at times of war and pandemics,” and called on them to “act now.”
Gamba said, the COVID-19 pandemic “has made things worse,” as “closed schools and crumbling economies generate push and pull factors that favour recruitment and use, sexual exploitation and child marriage.”
Lockdowns, she said, “have restrained and diminished children’s access to essential services,” and “empty schools may be an incentive for parties to conflict to loot or use schools for military purposes.”
Also briefing the Council, UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta H. Fore said, “COVID-19 has disrupted learning for over one billion children worldwide. But at the same time, we must remember those who have no education waiting for them. Including many of the 75 million children who live in countries in conflict.”
Fore said, “out-of-school children — and children living in conflict generally — face a world of danger. They’re at higher risk of recruitment by armed forces or groups. Gender based violence. Child marriage and early pregnancy. Abuse and trafficking. And numbers cannot capture the heart-breaking cost to the spirits of these young people when their schools are attacked.”
Today’s presidential statement calls upon Member States to protect schools as spaces free from all forms of violence, and to ensure that they are accessible to all children, including children in vulnerable situations, and take steps to address girls’ and boys’ equal enjoyment of their right to education.
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