This indicator measures the number of reported incidents of sexual violence against students, teachers and/or other educational personnel perpetrated by armed forces or armed groups (from government and/or opposition groups) at schools, universities or other educational facilities or on the way to or from them, in the last 12 months or during a designated period of time. It includes also incidents of sexual violence when students, teachers and/or personnel are target because of their status (as students/teachers/personnel).
Virtual library of the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary General for Children and Armed Conflict, OCHA’s Humanitarian Data Exchange’s Education and Conflict Monitor, the reports of the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack (GCPEA), and GCPEA and Insecurity Insight’s Education in Danger newsbrief.
Article 1 (A), Article 2 (1), Article 13 (1,4), International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; Article 29 (2), Convention on the Rights of the Child; Article 2, Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict; Articles 4, 13, 32, 50 & 94, Geneva Convention IV; Article 48, 49, 50, 51, 57, 58, 77 & 78, Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions; Art 4 (2, 3° Additional Protocol II to the Geneva Conventions; International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance; Article 2 (2) Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment; Article 1 (A), Article 2 (1), International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; Article 7, (g) (i) & article 8 (2) (b) (ix), Rome Statute;; Article 13 (5), Protocol of San Salvador; Article 11 (7), African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child; Article 14 (3), European Union Charter of Fundamental Rights; Article 27 (3) ILO Convention 169; Article 18, Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse. UN Security Council resolutions: 1261 (1999), 1314 (2000), 1379 (2001), 1460 (2003), 1539 (2004), 1612 (2005), 1820 (2008), 1882 (2009), 1998 (2011), 2068 (2012), 2143 (2014), 2225 (2015), 2427 (2018).
Add up all the reported incidents identified and qualified as sexual violence in the indicator Have students, teachers and other educational personnel been attacked at or on the way to or coming back from schools, universities or other educational facilities? (Disaggregation level IIC).
During political and/or military hostilities, students, teachers and/or other educational personnel may be victims of sexual violence. Other than the psychological and physical effects of sexual violence, a high number of reports of sexual violence against students and/or personnel may create a climate of insecurity: parents may avoid sending their girls to school through fear that something might happen to them, and teachers and staff may refrain from going to work. This might lead to an increase in drop-out rates and teachers absenteeism, as well as a decrease in gross enrolment rate.
‘Sexual violence at, or on the way to or from, school or university occurs when armed forces, law enforcement, other state security entities, or non-state armed groups, sexually threaten, harass, or abuse students or educators of all genders. Sexual violence includes rape, sexual slavery, forced marriage, forced prostitution, forced pregnancy, forced sterilization, forced abortion, forced circumcision, castration, genital harm, and any other non-consensual sexual act, as well as acts that may not require physical violence or contact but include humiliation or shaming of a sexual nature’ (GCPEA, Education Under Attack 2020 Report, p. 87/88). Note that for the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack (GCPEA), sexual violence constitutes a distinct category. We consider it a sub-category of attacks on students, teachers and other educational personnel and therefore, included in this category.
The indicator can be applied at a regional, national or subnational level.