GCPEA News

GCPEA Priorities for the Protection of Schools, Teachers, and Students in the 2013 Security Council Debate on Children and Armed Conflict

Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack, June 1, 2013

In conflicts around the world, schools, teachers, and students have not just been caught in the crossfire, they have been intentionally targeted as a tactic of war. The Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack was formed in 2010 to help address this problem.

UN Security Council Resolution 1998 in 2011 expanded the criteria for listing parties to conflict in the Secretary-General’s report on children and armed conflict to include parties that attack or threaten schools and protected persons in relation to schools. Since then the Council has paid increased attention to attacks, threats of attacks, and the related issue of military use of schools in contravention of international humanitarian law, and strengthened its mechanism to address the problem. In the upcoming Security Council debate on children and armed conflict and any outcome document, the Council has the opportunity to draw on new information provided by the UN in order to reinforce its commitment to making schools, teachers, and students off limits to warring parties.

The Secretary-General’s 2013 report on Children and Armed Conflict made clear that the problem is widespread. Of the 22 situations covered in the report, 19 address education-related violations, including schools bombed, shelled, and razed by warring parties, and students and education personnel threatened, abducted, and killed.[1]

The Secretary-General’s report draws special attention to the military use of schools, noting that: “The use of schools for military purposes puts children at risk of attack and hampers children’s right to education…. Such use of schools not only results in reduced enrolment and high drop-out rates, especially among girls, but may also lead to schools being considered legitimate targets for attack” (para. 9). Yet in 11 country situations, schools were “used as military barracks, weapons storage facilities, command centers, detention and interrogation sites, or as firing and observation positions” (para. 9). A recent report by the Coalition, “Lessons in War: Military Use of Schools and Other Educational Institutions During Conflict,” found that in 24 countries with conflicts across Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and South America between January 2006 and October 2012, armed forces or armed groups used schools and other education institutions for military purposes.[2]

The Secretary-General’s report also found high overall numbers of education-related violations in several situations. In Mali, for example, 115 schools were looted, damaged, bombed, used for military purposes or contaminated with ordnance (para. 97). In Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, 321 cases of education-related violations were reported (up from 46 cases in 2011) (para. 117). In Afghanistan, 167 incidents were reported (para. 31); in Yemen, 165 incidents of attacks on schools and 61 incidents of teachers and students threatened or intimidated (para. 168). In Syria, 167 education personnel were reported killed and 2,445 schools reported damaged (para. 157). In Pakistan, attacks by armed groups targeting schools, teachers, and school children, especially girls, also increased (para. 186).

In the upcoming Security Council debate on children and armed conflict, we respectfully recommend that states speaking at the debate:

  • Take note of and condemn the widespread intentional targeting of schools, teachers, and students as a tactic of war.
  • Condemn the practice of using schools for military purposes during armed conflict, note the negative impact this has on children’s safety and access to education, and call on parties to armed conflict to refrain from the military use of schools.

We also urge members of the Council to draw on language from recent resolutions and presidential statements[3] as a foundation for this year’s outcome document and to emphasize the importance that the Security Council places on this issue. In particular, we propose that the Council in an outcome document:

  • Condemns attacks or threats of attacks against students, teachers, and schools in violation of international law, as well as the use of schools for military purposes, recognizing that both attacks and military use of schools threaten children’s safety and their right to education, and call upon all relevant parties cease immediately such practices and any actions that impede children’s access to education, and take special measures to protect children.
  • Requests the Secretary-General to continue to monitor and report on the military use of schools, as well as on attacks against schools, teachers, and students.
  • Calls upon all parties listed in the annexes of the Secretary-General’s report on children and armed conflict that commit recurrent attacks or threats of attacks on schools, teachers, or students, to prepare without delay concrete, time-bound action plans to halt these violations and end any military use of schools.
  • Encourages States to develop laws and regulations restricting the use of schools for military operations.


[1] These are the countries of: Afghanistan, Central African Republic, Cote D’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Mali, Occupied Palestinian Territory/Israel, Somalia, South Sudan, Syria, Yemen, Colombia, India, Pakistan, Philippines, and Thailand and the Lord’s Resistance Army in the Central African region. Only reporting on Chad, Myanmar, and Sudan does not contain information on education-related violations during the reporting period.

[2] Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack, Lessons in War: Military Use of Schools and Other Educational Institutions During Conflict, November 2012, https://www.protectingeducation.org/sites/default/files/documents/lessons_in_war.pdf.

[3] UNSC Resolution 2068 (2012), para. 2: “[S]trongly condemns all violations of applicable international law involving the recruitment and use of children by parties to a conflict as well as…attacks on schools…and demands that all relevant parties immediately put an end to such practices and take special measures to protect children.”

UNSC Resolution 1998 (2011) para. 4: “[R]equests the Secretary-General to also include in the annexes to his reports on children and armed conflict those parties to armed conflict that engage, in contravention of applicable international law; (a) in recurrent attacks on schools…(b) in recurrent attacks or threats of attacks against protected persons in relation to schools…in situations of armed conflict[.]”

UNSC Resolution 1998 (2011) para. 4: “Urges parties to armed conflict to refrain from actions that impede children’s access to education…and requests the Secretary-General to continue to monitor and report, inter alia, on the military use of schools…in contravention of international humanitarian law, as well as on attacks against, and/or kidnapping of teachers[.]”

UNSC Resolution 1998 (2011) para. 6(c): “Calls upon those parties listed in the annexes of the Secretary-General’s report on children and armed conflict that commit, in contravention of applicable international law, recurrent attacks on schools…recurrent attacks or threats of attacks against protected persons in relation to schools… in situations of armed conflict, to prepare without delay, concrete time-bound action plans to halt those violations and abuses.”

Statement by the President of the Security Council, April 29, 2009: “[U]rges parties to armed conflict to refrain from actions that impede children’s access to education, in particular attacks or threats of attack 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.”