Day of action for Malala and girls' right to school

BBC News, Gordon Brown, UN Special Envoy for Global Education, 23 October 2012

A million people around the world signed a petition backing Malala Yousafzai

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Gordon Brown

Almost one million people worldwide have signed their name to call on both the Pakistan government and the United Nations to achieve Malala Yousafzai's aim - that every girl has the opportunity to go to school.

Two weeks on, the wave of support for the 14-year-old Pakistani girl shot in the head by the Taliban, shows no sign of diminishing.

Now is the time for action on the second Millennium Development Goal for universal primary education.

The events of the last fortnight have shown that the global collective willpower to deliver on this aim is there.

The words "I am Malala" are not only a defiant challenge to the Taliban but a bold assertion that every single girl and boy should have the chance of an education.

A few weeks before her shooting, Malala told friends of her determination to campaign for the 32 million girls around the world who are not at school.

Out of school

By declaring 10 November - one month after the attempted assassination - "Malala and the 32 million girls day", we can start to make Malala's dream come true.

I will call for a global day of action, when I meet President Zardari of Pakistan next month to hand him our petitions and ask him to lead governmental changes in policy to secure girls' education in his and Malala's country. 

Gordon Brown: For 61m children
without schools "equality of opportunity
 remains a hollow dream".

For decades there has been a dangerous assumption that we are making year-on-year progress towards universal education - and yet the most recent figures published by UNESCO in their Global Monitoring Report show that 61 million children don't receive an education.

A further 200 million remain illiterate despite attending school. Equality of opportunity remains a hollow dream.

Pakistan is a case study of the challenge ahead, showing how much there's still to be done if we are to meet the Millennium Development Goal target. Some five million don't receive an education, three million of whom are girls.

This means that Pakistan has 49.5 million illiterate adults, two-thirds of them female.

What is just as shocking is that educational spending is not rising - as we might assume - but falling, from an already meagre 2.6% of Gross National Product in 1999 to 2.3%.

This represents just 9% of government spending (the equivalent figure for spending on the military is seven times higher).

Child labour

Pakistan's continuing failure is sadly replicated elsewhere. In some parts of the Indian sub-continent as well as in sub-Saharan Africa, one quarter of all children are out of school, amid worrying evidence that past gains are being reversed as aid for education is cut.

Students in Karachi hold up pictures of the wounded schoolgirl
Malala Yousufzai

Despite the recent creation of initiatives such as "child marriage-free zones" in Bangladesh, every year some 10 million girls globally are forced into loveless marriages - and out of the classroom.

Even though there was a successful Indian march against child labour, 15 million children under 14 are not in school today because they are working full time - on cocoa plantations, down mines, or carrying out other hazardous occupations.

We have around 40 months to meet our deadline for universal education. We have one chance left to deliver in these three years. If the tragic story of Malala tells us anything, it is that we must do all we can to achieve it.

Action is beginning to coalesce. Last month a new initiative, Education First, launched by the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, has brought together every UN and World Bank agency concerned with education, to offer poor performing governments, including Pakistan, a chance to deliver new school-places and train more teachers.

Every one of the countries with out-of-school children will be asked to draw up a plan setting out its precise needs in terms of teachers, school building and financing. At the core of each plan will be strategies for policing an end to child labour, enforcing the law against child marriage and clamping down on discrimination against girls.

Last chance

In April next year a joint summit between international agencies and governments will be held by Ban Ki-moon and the President of the World Bank Jim Kim at which precise plans will be finalised along with timetables and budgets.

Malala Yousafzai was brought to the UK for hospital treatment

During my visit to Pakistan next month I will begin this process with the Pakistan government and work on an agreed timetable.

The demonstrations, protests and online action we have seen in the last two weeks should inspire world leaders into action in agreeing the way forward.

Malala's personal campaign may have been halted temporarily, but the millions who now speak up on her behalf must now come together as one in the run up to 10 November so that we must wait no longer for action on education.

Related Articles:

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Malala Yousafzai can make smooth recovery, doctors say

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Archangel Michael: The Declaration of Human Freedom

"... Children are meant to live lives under the beneficent protection of all, free of exploitation, with unhindered access to the necessities of life, education, and health care ..."

Archangel Michael: It’s Time to Let Go of the Old (AAM channeled by Linda Dillon) - New

“……

AAM: Let us speak first to the terrible — and I use “terrible” in its truest sense — terrible issue of racism, of hatred, of control. Because all racism, all fanaticism, whether it is political or religious or economic — there is a great deal of economic fanaticism on your planet still, and you see it every day -  is bred from a very peculiar mix, and it is bred from fear, entitlement, and what you may choose to call karma and what I will refer to as some past-life bleed-through.

These people are going to have a very hard time if they choose to resist and fight. And that is why we ask each of you to make sure that you are the transmitters and the beamers, but that you are not becoming involved in that morass of chaos, that they undoubtedly are creating and will create.

It is all stemming from a lack of self worth and self love, an unknowing of deservingness and of worth. Because when you are in your heart and you know, innately, deeply, fully of your connection to the One, of your divinity, and that you hold that love not in a superficial way that we so often witness upon your planet… it has improved, but it is still there. When there is really love there can be no hatred or disgust with those that you deem or designate as less than. It is such an absurd construct, that. Did we not understand the various levels and the emanations, we would simply shake our heads. So will this be wrenched from them? They have a choice, and, if they choose to continue to cling, then of course the choice is they will be relocated elsewhere. But what I am also saying, individually — and you think, “How can you do this, Michael, individually to millions upon millions of millions of people?” Well, I suggest you leave that to us. They will have their confrontations with their egos, and they will also have their opportunities to see their divinity and to acknowledge the equality of all beings.

For many, it will be extremely uncomfortable. But it is necessary. That is why we have encouraged so many to do the work, so that you are not at the last minute being wrenched in this way. That is partially what Syria is about. That is what Milala in Afghanistan is about. It is the choice, for people to look at that and say, “How can this be? And how could I hold such hatred in my heart?”

Now, these examples have been brought up to you time and again. The shootings, long ago, Martin Luther King, the freedom fighters, the executions, in Iraq and Iran. These are the mirrors that are held up to those who think they are better than, because that is the end result of hatred and entitlement.

It is pathetic.

SB: Lord, could I intervene at this moment and say that photos have been produced that suggest that Milala’s shooting was staged. There’s a photo of her not having any throat wound. There’s a photo of her walking to the helicopter. Was it staged, or not?

AAM: No, it was not staged. It was a brutal attack.

SB: All right. Thank you.

AAM: Was it staged by us? Yes!

SB: What do you mean by that, Lord?

AAM: I mean it is an opportunity. Is it real in physical form? Yes. Is it real in terms of an opportunity for people to say, “This type of persecution has need to end”? Yes.  ……….”