Nadege Auguste teaches her daughters at home. Access to education is a huge challenge in Haiti
28 May 2014
Half of primary school aged children cannot access education in Haiti due to a lack of public schools. ActionAid and peasants groups of the Je Nan Je platform, are calling for government action to standardise education policies and uphold the Haitian constitution which should guarantee basic education to every child in the country. The lack of public primary schools in Haiti has given rise to an... Read more
Pupils in their classroom in Cambodia
28 May 2014
The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) is preparing a General Recommendation on girls and women’s right to education, which is a document produced by the Committee to give guidance on the interpretation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.For this purpose, the Committee is holding a half-day discussion... Read more
9 May 2014
Human Rights Watch has published a report on the exclusion of children from marginalised groups from accessing education in India.In 2009, India enacted the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, which provides for free and compulsory education to all children aged 6 to 14. However, the evidence presented in this report indicates that despite the 3 year deadline to implement the... Read more
Palais de Nations, Geneva
9 May 2014
Uncontrolled privatisation of various essential social services has grown in the last two decades, whether it be prisons, health, water, or land, with devastating impacts for the enjoyment of human rights without discrimination. Education, which had been relatively saved until now, has become in the last years the new area in which investors are rushing into to make profit, with the support of... Read more
Palais Wilson in Geneva, Switzerland, headquarters of the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)
14 April 2014
Today, 14 April 2014, the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on a Communications Procedure has entered into force following its ratification by the required 10 countries: Albania, Bolivia, Gabon, Germany, Montenegro, Portugal, Spain, Thailand, Slovakia and Costa Rica.The new Protocol enables children and their representatives to submit complaints to the Committee on... Read more
1 April 2014
In Limpopo, a poor rural province in northern South Africa, there is a ongoing education crisis. Many schools do not have access to key components of the right to basic education, such as toilets, drinking water, desks, paper, chalk and even classrooms, to ensure a conducive learning environment.Two years ago, a case was brought to court for the non-delivery of textbooks in Limpopo's schools.... Read more
25 March 2014
Human Rights Watch has just published a new report on Senegal's Quranic Schools where children live in unsafe conditions or are exploited by teachers, who force them to beg and inflict severe punishment when the boys fail to return a set quota of money.The  report, Exploitation in the Name of Education: Uneven Progress in Ending Forced Child Begging in Senegal, examines Senegal’s mixed record in... Read more
21 March 2014
Human Rights Watch alarms about Iraq's new draft Law that would allow girls to be married from age nine, which would have negative impacts on girls' right to education. The current law sets legal age for marriage at 18, but allows for a judge to permits girls as young as 15 to be married in "urgent" case.The rates of early marriage of girls had risen drastically in Iraq in the previous decade. In... Read more
A 14-year-old girl holds her baby at her sister’s home in a village in Kanduku, in Malawi’s Mwanza district. She married in September 2013, but her husband chased her away. Her 15-year-old sister, in the background, married when she was 12. Both sisters s
7 March 2014
Human Rights Watch releases today a report on child marriage in Malawi, ahead of International Women’s Day on March 8.The report, I’ve Never Experienced Happiness’: Child Marriage in Malawi, documents how child marriage prevents girls and women from participating in all spheres of life. It also highlights how the practice violates the right to education. Indeed, child marriage often interrupts... Read more
24 February 2014
As education is subject to increasing privatisation, a human rights analysis of the processes and impacts has remained largely neglected. The Right to Education Project publishes a new report - Privatisation of Education: Global Trends of Human Rights Impacts, together with a factsheet and a training module, to increase awareness of the issues surrounding the privatisation of education, from a... Read more

Pages